


Edgar Van Scyoc Presents: Doctor Who

by copperbadge



Series: Torchwood USA [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: Chicago (City), Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-06
Updated: 2008-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-22 17:30:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 49,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/916050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The American sci-fi drama Torchwood has been renewed for a second season. Its spinoff show, Doctor Who, is much anticipated by fans and critics alike. Managing the actors and getting scripts out on time is nothing new for executive producer Edgar van Scyoc and head writer Ellis Graveworthy, but their own relationship is evolving as well. Follow along as Torchwood defends Chicago from alien gamblers, mad scientists, tentacle monsters, and other menaces, while the Doctor visits the end of the world, a new New York, and eras of time long-past on Earth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sketches by Mia Lee were done by bluejeans07 on LJ, jeandrawsstuff on tumblr. Most of the manips were done by me, though often the images for the manips were taken from google. 
> 
> Special thanks to everyone who helped with casting for Torchwood. Also thanks to Dove, who let me bounce ideas off her and made interesting observations about my manips.

Ellis was sitting on the sofa in his office, all over the sofa in fact -- feet propped on one arm, head on the other, left arm resting on the nearest back-cushion, right resting on his chest. Edgar was in the office chair, reading, because it felt weird to read Ellis' scripts in his own office -- he read everyone else's scripts there, and the spec scripts that made it past screening, but if he read what Ellis wrote it felt too much like he was judging him, somehow, and Edgar hadn't needed a year of working with him to know that he was not qualified to judge Ellis, not when it came to the words.

The point was, if he was in Ellis's office then it wasn't the Executive Producer and the Head Writer. It was just Edgar reading over his buddy's script for grammar and maybe to make a suggestion or two.

"I was thinking," Ellis said, or something like that; Edgar wasn't paying attention, because he'd just gotten to the good part of the script. "We should do a spinoff."

"Mm?" Edgar answered. "Chinese, you think?"

Ellis had probably given him one of those looks he got, which said very clearly that he didn't understand how anyone in America, and Edgar van Scyoc in particular, made it past puberty.

"A Chinese spinoff?" he asked skeptically.

"I _like_ sweet and sour chicken," Edgar said, because this was an old argument and he knew the rhythm of it. Then he paused. "Wait, what?"

"What?" Ellis said.

"Didn't you just say we should get dinner?"

"No, idiot child, I said we should do a spinoff."

Edgar gaped. " _What?_ "

"What?" Ellis asked. "The Doctor is hugely popular with the viewership and the network can't find anything to put up after Torchwood on Saturday nights."

"Are you serious? A spinoff with the _Doctor_?"

"Why not? He's established as a character, and I think I could woo Barrowman into at least a season. If it goes belly-up, so what? We have Torchwood."

Edgar paused to think, because you didn't get to be one of the pre-eminent creative powers at NBC without pausing to think before you spoke.

"I've done a little backstory for him," Ellis said into the silence, like a kid confessing he'd snuck an extra chocolate bar after dinner.

"You've done backstory."

"That's right."

"On the Doctor."

"It's very interesting. I've even invented villains. They look a little like old-fashioned hoovers."

"The Doctor does battle from his police box with evil vacuum cleaners."

"Sentient evil vacuum cleaners," Ellis corrected. "With lethal lasers."

Edgar set the script down and leaned back, lacing his fingers over his stomach. "You just want to write forty scripts a year, huh."

"No! We could hire some -- well, yes, all right, I'm fast and I get a little bored sometimes and I like television."

"You can't write forty scripts a year," Edgar said, annoyed.

"No, you'll write five or six for Torchwood and probably one or two for Doctor Who -- "

Edgar laughed. "Doctor Who? That's what you're calling it?"

"Perfectly good name," Ellis said. "We have three up-and-comers for Torchwood -- one of them at least will want to swap over and keep an eye on the newbies, and we'll bring in someone new for Torchwood. You'll have to handpick someone to Exec for the show but you have some pull, you can get someone good. Someone like you."

Edgar tipped his head back and studied the ceiling. There were a handful of pennies stuck in it; Ellis had the bad habit of using a rubber-band slingshot to fire spare change around the room when he was blocked or bored.

"Okay," he said finally. "Gimme a workup and a pilot script and I'll take it to the bosses."

"That's what I like about you," Ellis said. "You're utterly mad, just like me."

"I'm not crazy," Edgar corrected. He pushed himself up from the chair and gathered up the script. "I just can't say no to you."

"I'll bear that in mind," Ellis intoned.

***

Excerpt from the shooting script for Torchwood Episode 2x01: Revival  
Story & Teleplay by: Ellis Graveworthy

INT - DAY - HUB

A pair of hands holding a scraped-up, much-abused diary with clippings and notes pasted in. It is open to one of the last pages. In voiceover:

IAN  
I had a team at Torchwood New York, once. We had two scientists, an anthropologist and a biologist, plus a technician and a bodyguard, and me. I was just a researcher, so I stayed back; never went into the field except to clean up.

FLASHBACK - TORCHWOOD NEW YORK - RESEARCH LAB

IAN is bent over a table, studying a text, making notes without looking at his notepad. LISA sets a coffee down at his elbow and circles to sit across from him. He looks up and smiles at her. Still in voiceover:

IAN  
Lisa was supposed to protect them, and she did. She got two of ours out before she -- before New York fell. I didn't really know any of them very well except for her. At the end of the day they'd go off to wherever they went, and I'd take her home. Kissing on the subway. She was the only one who called me Johnny. I don't think the rest of them even knew my name was Gianni. I was just Ian, except to her.

INT - DAY - HUB

Long pan across the HUB; it is dark, obviously early morning. Voiceover:

IAN  
This is what Torchwood is. We lose what we love, and we go on. We carry guns so others don't have to. I wouldn't say it's noble so much as necessary. It's not courage if you have no other option.

INT - SAME - MEDICAL GROTTO

Camera swings across TAMAKI and OWEN lying on exam tables. The table between them is empty. Swing around to reveal THE DOCTOR standing and holding IAN's diary. He closes it. Voiceover:

IAN  
Life is better than the alternative. Sometimes.

THE DOCTOR exhales; gold mist drifts from his mouth, dissipating in the air. He walks to TAMAKI and touches his chest lightly. Gold glow suffuses them both.

THE DOCTOR leaves TAMAKI still lying on the table and walks to OWEN, resting the fingertips of both hands against his temples. The same glow, this time shot through with white, surrounds OWEN.

Close-up on OWEN's face. His eyes snap open as he inhales.

BLACKOUT

IAN (voiceover)  
I had a team at Torchwood Chicago, once. [beat] I miss them.

INT - DAY - HUB

GWEN enters the HUB, tossing her bag down on her chair. She checks her computer. JACK emerges from his office, looking sleepy and rumpled.

GWEN  
Morning.

JACK  
Regrettably.

GWEN  
Ian in yet?

JACK  
[yawns] Don't know. I think he took Toshiko home last night. He might've stayed with her.

GWEN  
Jack, did you hear anything this morning? Some proximity alerts are blinking.

JACK  
Show me.

JACK leans over her shoulder to study the computer, one hand resting on the small of her back. He frowns, then looks up at the medical grotto and takes off across the HUB at a run.

INT - MEDICAL GROTTO

JACK arrives at the railing and looks down. GWEN joins him after a second. Both look shocked. Pan around to the beds in the grotto. All three are empty.

CREDITS

_Written in red ink in the margin: Ellis, this is great, but are you sure it's not too passive? There's a lot of voiceover. This feels like the end of an episode rather than the start of a new season. Shouldn't we come on again with a bang?  
In green ink, underneath it: Trust me, Edgar._

***

**SNEAK PREVIEW: TORCHWOOD AND DOCTOR WHO**

Join us at eight, seven central this Friday night for a preview airing of the season premier of _Torchwood_ , as well as scenes from the pilot episode of _Torchwood_ 's exciting new spinoff, _Doctor Who_. We'll have interviews with cast and crew, some behind-the-scenes footage from last year, and a special commentary by Edgar van Scyoc and Ellis Graveworthy. Then tune in Saturday for a repeat of _Torchwood_ : Revival and the first new episode of _Doctor Who_.

TORCHWOOD: 2x01 REVIVAL   
_Three corpses have gone missing from the Hub, and the grieving team will stop at nothing to find their friends' bodies and lay them to rest. The only problem is that the bodies of their friends may not want to be laid to rest just yet..._

DOCTOR WHO: 1x01 PILOT   
_The Doctor's ship, the TARDIS, is missing after he sacrificed himself to help close the Rift in Chicago. If he doesn't find it soon it may disappear forever. But to find it he'll need the help of a USPAT Colonel named Gordon Lethbridge and a young pop-culture addict named Rose Tyler -- neither of whom are particularly inclined to lend a hand._

***

TORCHWOOD 2x02: FAMILY REUNION   
_The Torchwood team is reunited, but not all is well in Chicago. Tamaki and Owen are constantly at each others' throats, making Tosh miserable. Gwen's fiancee is begging her to spend more time with him, and Ian is uncertain whether his relationship with Jack has any real meaning. Now they have to infiltrate a Chicago crime family who definitely aren't Illinois natives, before the family's final plan is put into action._

Ian bowed his head and rubbed his temples, an unusually demonstrative sign of frustration from the young man; in the background, Tommy and Owen's shouting was interrupted by a crashing noise.

"Autoclave, maybe," Gwen said, sitting on the sofa next to him.

"Sounded more like the scalpel rack."

"What are they fighting about this time?"

"They need a reason?" Ian asked sourly.

"They will in a minute," Jack said purposefully, striding past them both. Gwen and Ian exchanged a look and got up quickly, Gwen grabbing Tosh's arm as they passed her station, all three following Jack to where Tommy and Owen were engaging in a heated exchange of ideas (mostly concerning each others' ancestry and sexual habits) in the medical grotto.

"I swear to god, boys," Jack said, drawing the pistol on his hip. "If you don't shut up I am going to shoot you both in non-lethal areas and consign you to Stroger Memorial ER for the rest of the day."

Both men abruptly fell silent.

"You wouldn't," Tommy finally challenged.

"He's too happy we're back among the living," Owen agreed.

"Tosh, would you mind taking your brother up to the conference room? Gwen, you can escort Owen," Jack added, waiting until everyone had passed before winking at Ian and offering his elbow. Ian waved him on and walked to his desk instead, taking down the mismatched set of coffee mugs the team used.

When he reached the conference room, Jack was just turning on the computer screen; he tapped a command into the laptop on the table and a series of grainy photographs appeared.

"After the recent...unpleasantness," Jack said, "I've had the state police and Chicago's local FBI office keeping tabs on local crime for me. The Rift put out a lot of energy, and the city's vulnerable right now as it rebuilds. Sooner or later someone was going to step into the void. Guess what! It's aliens."

"It's always aliens," Owen sighed.

"What's the job?" Ian asked pragmatically.

"Crime family, o my children. We are about to infiltrate the Alien Mafia," Jack announced. "Ian and Toshiko, I need fake pasts for all of us by the end of the day."

"Can I be the hired muscle?" Owen asked. Everyone looked at him; slight-built and short, he didn't exactly fit the bill.

"No," Jack said kindly. "But you can be my wayward playboy son if you really want to."

Ian raised an eyebrow. "Not to offend Owen's youthful looks, but you hardly look old enough to be anyone's father here."

"I can grey up," Jack said. "Also, thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Gwen, you are the favourite son's affianced, you already have the ring," Jack continued. "Tosh and Tommy, would you like to be drug dealers?"

"Awesome," Tommy said.

"Which leaves Ian," Jack grinned at him. Ian tried not to look apprehensive. "I rather fancy you for a hired gun."

"You fancy him for anything," Owen muttered.

"I could still shoot you," Jack said. "Ostensibly we are a small organization depleted by the 'earthquake' Chicago suffered, and looking to join up with someone larger and more powerful until we find our feet again."

"Wait, wait a minute," Owen said suddenly. " _Ian_ gets to be the hired muscle? How is that fair?"

Jack gave him an appraising look. "Wait until you see the car you get as part of your cover story. Now. Let me brief you on what we know, and what we're going to attempt to find out..."

Ian glanced at Tosh and grinned. Building cover stories was always fun, and Tosh sometimes showed him how to hack various law-enforcement and city-government databases if he asked nicely.

***

Transcript from the audio commentary on "Family Reunion" with Ellis Graveworthy, David Tennant, and Edgar van Scyoc:

David: Oh, so this scene right here...

Ellis: Oh no...

Edgar: Oh! It's the hamster scene!

David: For those of you listening to this, you can see Jack standing there with the gun up his sleeve, cupped in his palm. Now what's supposed to happen in about a minute is that he'll pull the gun from his sleeve and advance on the alien and say a load of scary things before Tosh there elbows the alien in the gut to get away from the knife.

Edgar: What we did here was we got Ellis to stand in for the alien on a long shot, where he wouldn't be visible, so that David would have someone to focus on as he's giving this big long angry speech.

Ellis: You're complete bastards, the pair of you.

David: What our viewers may not know is that Ellis --

Ellis: [in the background] I swear to god --

David: -- Ellis has a phobia of hamsters.

Ellis: They're _rodents_. And we invite them into our homes. Inbred vicious _rodents!_

David: So during a break I ran back to our Art Director's office, she keeps a pet hamster there.

Edgar: Which is why we never have meetings in Mia's office.

David: OH, OH HERE IT COMES -- Jack swings his arm up, there's the pistol shooting out of his sleeve --

Edgar: But in one take, which I promise is going on the gag reel, he whips out a hamster instead.

Ellis: I hate everyone.

Edgar: And starts advancing on Ellis, standing in for the alien, and Ellis freezes and won't move until David completely breaks from his lines and starts going PEW PEW PEW with the hamster-gun.

Ellis: I am going to invent a character named after you, Tennant, and kill him gruesomely.

David: The hamsters shall have their revenge!

***

torchwood_el special post-episode edition for Family Reunion:  
---  
  
**Discussion and Meta:**   
kid_sato has a discussion of the Gettigian Crime Family's power structure   
kinkocopier asks if Ian might be familiar with mafia procedures   
copperbadge has three things to say about the episode   
spiderine has 29+1 thinkies

**Episode coda fanfic:**   
ALL IN THE FAMILY by moby_kick | (Ian/OFC, NC-17) | Summary: At least one member of the Gettigan Family isn't intimidated by Ian's gun -- quite the reverse.   
ELEVATE AND ICE by jekyllpark | (Tosh/Owen, mention of Jack/Ian, PG) | Summary: Owen takes Tosh to the emergency room after they blow up the Gettigan casino.   
FUCKING TORCHWOOD by kikura_s | (Andy, gen, G) | Summary: Andy's really tired of Torchwood blowing up portions of his city.   
THE GODFATHER by whoisthedoc | (Jack/Andre Gettigan, Jack/Andre/Ian, R) | Summary: The head of the Gettigan Family likes Jack, and he likes Jack's playtoy too.   
BREAKUP by vanscyocfan | (Gen, mention of Jack/Ian, G) ) | Summary: Ian's spent too much time wondering about their relationship.

|   
  
***

DOCTOR WHO 1x02: THE END OF THE WORLD   
_The Doctor, annoyed by Gordon and Rose's demands for a trip in the TARDIS as repayment for helping him find it, decides to take them to witness the end of the world. He didn't count on someone else trying to take over the super-luxury observation platform they're watching from, and he definitely didn't count on needing the help of a sentient tree._

Excerpt from the shooting script for Doctor Who 1x02: The End Of The World  
Story by: Edgar van Scyoc  
Teleplay by: Ellis Graveworthy

INT - OBSERVATION PLATFORM

DOCTOR  
Lethbridge, Rose, this is Jabe.

LETHBRIDGE  
Is she?

DOCTOR  
Play nice. Jabe, this is Colonel Lethbridge and Rose Tyler.

JABE  
I bring you a gift of friendship. [Offers ROSE a small seedling in a pot]

ROSE  
Uh. Thanks. Hey, Michael Jackson's henchman over there is calling, I'm gonna go see what she wants. [ROSE indicates where one of CASSANDRA's servants is waving urgently at her.] Nice to meet you, Jabe.

JABE  
Your daughter is a well-mannered young woman, Doctor.

DOCTOR  
Ah! No, she's not my daughter.

JABE  
Colonel Lethbridge's daughter, then.

LETHBRIDGE  
Excuse me?

JABE  
I meant no insult. [to LETHBRIDGE] She is perhaps your wife? Or your...mutual wife?

LETHBRIDGE looks shocked.

JABE  
Concubine?

DOCTOR  
She's a friend. That's all!

JABE  
I apologize, but surely...do you see nothing unusual about two men of your age, traveling with a young woman such as herself?

LETHBRIDGE  
Hey, I'm an officer, I don't pull that kind of crap. [gestures to the Doctor] And he's not even the same species!

JABE  
What has that to do with anything?

DOCTOR  
She does have a point.

LETHBRIDGE  
Listen, tree-lady, it's not happening. I'm not interested in her, and I'm pretty sure the Doctor is more interested in the finger food.

JABE  
Ah. Well, if the two of you were together you need only have said.

LETHBRIDGE  
You know what? I'm gonna go make small talk with the giant face.

DOCTOR  
Behave yourself!

LETHBRIDGE waves a hand as he walks off towards THE FACE OF BOE.

***

2x03 THE BOY IN THE FIREPLACE   
_Still uneasy with each other, the reunited Torchwood team encounters a machine that opens windows in time, seemingly fixated on a French-Haitian named Jean-Baptiste. They are all charmed by the adventurous young man, but when strange cybernetic cowboys begin to pursue him they have to find a way to save Jean-Baptiste -- or else Chicago might just disappear._

***

Excerpt from the shooting script for Episode 2x03: The Boy In The Fireplace  
Story & Teleplay by: Ellis Graveworthy

INT - HUB - MEDICAL GROTTO - DAY

JACK is seated on the stairs while TOSH and TOMMY dissect the CLOCKWORK CYBERNETIC COWBOY. OWEN is extracting liquid from what looks like a fuel cell in its back.

JACK  
Jean-Baptiste Pointe du Sable. Jesus.

OWEN  
Who is this guy?

EVERYONE looks at him, surprised.

OWEN  
What? I didn't major in the French Revolution in school.

TOSH  
Du Sable Museum? Ring any bells?

OWEN  
No.

JACK  
Du Sable was the son of a French pirate and a Haitian slave. When his mother was killed in a raid he escaped by swimming to the ship his father served on. He was educated in France and then came to Michigan, where he married a Native American woman and became part of her tribe. He was called Black Chief.

Behind them, IAN and GWEN approach, clearly entranced by JACK's storytelling.

JACK  
He built on the banks of the Chicago river and became the first permanent settler in Chicago. He had a fur-trading post -- he built his house over by where Trib Tower is now. If his home were still standing, it would face the Trump building. Before the Hub here was built or thought of, he would have walked around over our heads.

TOSH and TOMMY inadvertently look up.

Pull in tight on OWEN as JACK continues to talk; his hands tremble and he sets his face and concentrates hard. He looks exhausted.

JACK OS  
He was an amazing man; he had a mill, a bakehouse, a dairy and a smokehouse, a well-furnished cabin -- full of art and good furniture. They say he was a spy for the Americans during the Revolutionary war, and he helped capture Vincennes during the Illinois Campaign. It was an amazing life. That schoolboy in the fireplace, he's going to grow up to become the founder of our city.

TOSH OS  
[teasing] Our city, Jack?

JACK OS  
I'm a citizen, you know.

IAN OS  
So what's he doing in our fireplace?

GWEN OS  
Why do we have a fireplace?

JACK OS  
Gets cold in the winter...

OWEN's shaking increases and he finally slams his hands on the counter to stop it. Cut back to the whole GROTTO as they all look at him.

OWEN  
Sorry. It's -- it's machine oil. Pure lubricant.

JACK wags his eyebrows.

OWEN  
Perv. It's not a power source or anything interesting. I could buy a pint of it at a hardware store.

OWEN turns around, hands behind his back. They fall still against the edge of the table as he speaks.

***

DOCTOR WHO 1x03: NEW EARTH   
_The Doctor just wants to take his erstwhile companions home, but a supernova has interfered with the TARDIS controls and instead they end up in New New York, a colony on the far side of the galaxy. Rose is delighted and distracted by the cat people, until she ends up possessed by a familiar face. Lethbridge, meanwhile, is keeping a close eye on the Doctor -- and a secret about why he's really in the TARDIS in the first place._

From Torchwords.com, official Torchwood behind-the-scenes blog: Ellis Graveworthy, "Don't Read Too Much Into It (I'm Not That Deep)".

Because we're airing both Doctor Who and Torchwood at the same time, a lot of fans feel there must be some connection between the episodes that air together, and I think there's been some strife about this, particularly on internet messageboards. I'm here to tell you that this theory isn't really true -- while I do frequently write two scripts at once, or we coordinate for filming space, there's still quite a bit of disconnect, especially since Doctor Who often films in Vancouver.

For example, in the first two episodes of Doctor Who we see the Doctor take Lethbridge and Rose to the end of the world to defeat a skin trampoline and then to New New York to face her down again, surrounded by cat people. Couldn't quite fit all that into one episode but it certainly has very little to do with crime families and the founding of Chicago. Doctor Who is meant to be more out-there, more specifically fantastical -- it's not necessarily some kind of tag to Torchwood, but a show in its own right with strong background ties.

I actually rather wanted to switch out the fourth and fifth episodes of Doctor Who, in fact, because I felt that Gwen's marriage and the fifth episode of Who, _1984_ , would be really especially apt together. But instead you have Gwen getting hitched in Chicago while aliens try to crash the party, and meanwhile over in Doctor Who you have the Doctor getting sucked into Big Brother House.

Still, I feel they're both quality episodes and at any rate you can't have everything.

NB: I've never myself been married, but I'm assured that marriage and reality television are entirely dissimilar.

***

Courtesy of Who's Talking, the Official Doctor Who Extras website:

**COLONEL's DOSSIER for episode 1x03: NEW EARTH**

Pursuant to USPAT Directive Three, "The Doctor Directive", I have made contact with the alien known as The Doctor and gained entry to his ship. Currently we are situated on a planet called New Earth, in the city of New New York, and I can't believe I just wrote that.

I will continue to monitor the Doctor and if possible bring him in, but he is resourceful and while I am not in any way indisposed I am more or less his prisoner. These notes are being kept on my PDA to minimize chances of discovery and in the hopes that I will be able to submit this information when next we are in the vicinity of Earth and/or the 21st Century.

The Doctor appears completely unaware of my mission, though he has shown some limited telepathic ability. He carries a weapon known as a "Sonic Blaster", which can not only stun or kill living beings but also vaporize wood, plaster, and metal alloys. Companion to this piece is a "Sonic Screwdriver", an elongated rod with a light at one end which has an apparent universal interface with any technology in local proximity. He claims to have bought them as a set.

The ship has no official name or designation but is informally referred to as "The T.A.R.D.I.S." standing for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. There is no crew and it appears that the ship is an organic/technological hybrid. More information will be forthcoming as I gain the Doctor's trust.

Another item of note is the translation circuit of the TARDIS. The Doctor is apparently not fluent in English, but some device (wireless? telepathic?) within the ship automatically translates both his language and ours, and the languages of those we encounter, into a common tongue.

In addition to myself and the Doctor there is a third passenger on the ship, a female civilian, 19 years old. Rose Tyler is a Chicago-born native and if possible recon should be gathered regarding her family and close friends. She appears reasonably intelligent and the Doctor has shown a marked protective instinct towards her.

It is my studied recommendation that USPAT command rethink its stance on apprehension and termination of the Doctor. when and if the Doctor is apprehended, terminal force must absolutely not be used. While he has shown in the past to be a danger to the continuity of the American timeline, the Doctor is an intelligent being from whom much can be learned. He is vulnerable to physical restraint and I believe he can be safely imprisoned if proper precautions are taken.

There follows a categorical list of all alien beings and technologies encountered thus far and the locations and time-periods in which they occurred. Updates will be ongoing.

***

TORCHWOOD 2x04: SOMETHING BORROWED   
_Gwen's getting married, and Torchwood are buckling down for the big day, trying to minimize the need for Rift supervision and prevent as much as possible from going wrong. When a group of party-crashing aliens decide to invade the wedding, however, things get tense. Fortunately, an angry Gwen is a force to be reckoned with. Here comes the bride..._

Costume and marketing conceptual sketch by Mia Lee, Torchwood Art Director.

***

DOCTOR WHO 1x04: THE LONG GAME   
_The Doctor and his companions travel to Station Alpha, a space station broadcasting 24/7 television to the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire, spread across the galaxy. All is not well in the Fourth Empire, however; citizens of the Empire are regularly abducted and forced to play life-or-death games for reality television, and the Supercontroller of the News Teams is filtering what news gets out and what very much doesn't. When the Doctor is imprisoned in the Big Brother House, Gordon and Rose must short out the Supercontroller and save him -- but Queer Eye wants Gordon naked (and headless) and Rose is invited to a Russian-Roulette version of Deal Or No Deal..._

"Rose! ROSE!"

Food courts were alike the world and time over, Rose thought, and Station Alpha was no exception. Same sticky tables, same packs of hungry workers and bored teenagers. Same...United States military officers calling her?

"Colonel?" she asked, half-rising from her seat, as mortified as if it had been her mother calling her. The Colonel saw her and pushed through the crowds hastily, grabbing her by both shoulders.

"Are you okay?" he asked, looking her up and down. "What the hell are you doing?"

She looked at the disposable cup in her hand. "Having a gurangi-juice milkshake. Tastes like grass. Want some?"

He brushed it aside as she offered and grabbed her arm, dragging her away from the food court and into a deserted hallway.

"The Doctor," he said, out of breath. "He's been taken."

"Taken?"

His face took on an almost comical look of panic and he pointed behind her, at one of the ubiquitous panel television screens that were mounted everywhere. She peered up at it, curious. Some kind of reality show, it looked like; a sort of urban-oriented Survivor --

"Oh my _god_ ," she said, staring at the Doctor's face as he pushed someone out of the way and got to proper work starting a wastebasket fire.

"This is -- "

"I can't leave him alone for a minute!" she blurted. "One second he's boring my _ass_ off about the Bountiful Human Kingdom and the next he's on _television_. And Survivor is so three thousand years ago!"

The Colonel got a look. It was the same look he got when she hooked her iPod into the TARDIS central computers and blasted Feist through speakers she didn't know it even had. What? She liked Feist.

"We've gotta get him out. I asked and -- " he swallowed nervously. "When you lose in these games you _die_."

"Well, he's not exactly going to lose, right?" she asked. "I mean, come on, this is the Doctor."

"Rose, take this seriously, please! He was going to find the Supercontroller, he said something was wrong with the news. That's the last I saw him."

"Oh? And what were you getting up to?" she asked.

"That's not important! We need to rescue him."

She shrugged off his hand. "So we'll find someone and explain that it's just a mistake, that we were just visiting."

"Who, exactly?" he demanded. "No, we've got to find the Supercontroller and shut this place down."

"Colonel, like a million people live here! You can't just shut it down."

"This isn't life!" he retorted. "It's -- it's existence, trapped in a space mall, marking time until lack of existence. You don't even die in places like this, you just don't show up for work one day. You eat burgers and drink milkshakes and buy shoes and watch television where people live vicariously for you -- "

"You sound like the Doctor," she snapped.

"Good. Stay here and let your brain fester and rot inside your head if you want. I'm going to find him."

He started to walk away and she considered, really deeply considered going to get a burger. Then she came to her senses and shouted "HEY!" and ran after him.

***

The Doctor was sensible and intelligent, and when he found himself in a fake city in the belly of the space station without his sonic blaster, he did the most logical thing: he built himself a gun and started shooting.

He was running, running up endless flights of stairs, climbing ladders and dashing down corridors, when he encountered a pale figure darting the other way and almost shot Gordon Lethbridge. A very naked Gordon Lethbridge.

"Doctor!" the Colonel blurted. "Thank God. You got out."

"What the hell happened to you?" the Doctor inquired, taking in Gordon's mussed hair and complete lack of clothing. The Colonel drew himself up to his full height, which didn't do anything for the shadows that were barely concealing his dignity as it was.

"I got conscripted into what turned out to be Queer Eye for the Soon To Be Deceased Guy," he said. "They wanted to take off my _face!_ "

"Come on," the Doctor said, shedding his coat and hanging it over the Colonel's shoulders. "This way. We need to -- "

" -- get to the Supercontroller, that's where Rose and I were -- "

"Rose? You took Rose to see the Supercontroller? What kind of moron are you?" the Doctor snarled.

"You wanted me to leave her in a food court in the middle of a space station in the wrong century? Great work, Lethbridge!" the Colonel snarled back.

"Fine. Fine. We need to find her. Come on, run!"

They eventually found a service elevator that didn't seem to be on the security monitors and the Doctor collapsed against a wall while Gordon dropped onto the floor for the long ride up to the four-hundred-ninety-ninth floor.

"Queer Eye, huh?" the Doctor asked.

"Just...please," Lethbridge said, pulling the coat tighter acround his waist.

"No, I was just thinking, it's weird they'd still have Queer Eye this far into your future. Orientation Rights went through a few hundred years ago at least."

"Yeah, I asked that," Lethbridge replied. "They said Queer just means urbane and intelligent now. Homosexuality optional."

"Well, that's kinda nice, I guess," the Doctor mused.

"Doesn't say much for their opinion of _me_ ," Lethbridge remarked.

The Doctor clapped Lethbridge on the shoulder, trying to be reassuring. "We'll find Rose, and then we'll stop the broadcasts. I think I know what I did wrong."

"Famous last words," the Colonel sighed.

***

Lethbridge, proving he wasn't completely useless at anything other than shooting, managed to hook his PDA into the space station and keep an eye on Rose's horrifying russian-roulette quiz show as they crept their way through the floor below the lair of the Supercontroller. The Doctor still had his makeshift gun and Lethbridge had managed to hold onto his (the Doctor didn't ask how), but they had a total of perhaps five bullets left between them.

Finally the Doctor stopped and ran his hands over a patch of wall, identical to every other patch except for the way it swung silently aside when he tapped his fingers in a particular rhythm.

"Bolero," he whispered, and began to climb the dark, twisting stairs.

"Where's this go?" Lethbridge asked.

"To the Supercontroller. Not far now -- this would have been a maintenance hatch when they were building it..."

The Doctor trailed off as he put his head up through a trap in the ceiling and peered around. He flipped it back and heaved himself out, reaching a hand down to help Lethbridge up as well.

Then he turned around.

"Oh, my god," Lethbridge said softly.

Suspended in a web of wires that dug into her skin at every joint and pulsepoint and ridge of rib under skin, a young girl hung a few feet off the floor. Her skin was pale white, almost painted-looking, and her eyes were solid deep yellow. The Doctor became aware of a soft background noise -- the girl in the wires, repeating sequences of numbers unendingly, not stopping to breathe or to swallow or to scream.

"The Supercontroller," the Doctor said. "They've wired her in. The ultimate Artificial Intelligence -- because it isn't artificial."

"It's horrible," Lethbridge whispered.

"Yeah," the Doctor agreed, and took his gun from his nerveless fingers and shot her in the head.

" _Doctor!_ "

"She's as good as dead. She hasn't had an original thought for years, by the look of it, and she'd die without the wires," the Doctor said, as sparks began to fly. "Now, come along. Let's find Rose and get out of here."

***

Courtesy of Who's Talking, the Official Doctor Who Extras website:

**COLONEL's DOSSIER for episode 1x04: THE LONG GAME**

I have revised my previous assessment of the Doctor's character; details to follow. I continue to believe strongly that terminal force must not be attempted on the Doctor. I believe any attempt would not be successful and would endanger the lives of those making the attempt. Suggestions for restraint and imprisonment to follow.

***

DOCTOR WHO 1x05: 1984   
_The Doctor and his companions find themselves in London in 1984 and, while Rose is thrilled, Gordon recalls the eighties less-than-fondly -- until he meets a young Welsh sociology professor with fascinating ideas about the future of the human race. Abandoned by his faithless companions, the Doctor stumbles on a plot to take over the airwaves using new "cordless" telephone technology. Is Professor Jenkins part of the plot, or is she an innocent pawn?_

"Pitch this one to me," Edgar said, leaning back in the soft, comfortable diner booth. "I'm not sure I'm getting it yet."

"Mm," Ellis said, mouth full of what he still insisted on calling chips. He swallowed, took a sip of his beer, and tapped a salty finger on his lips. "Consider it this way. We know we only have Flanigan on loan while his other work's on hiatus. I want to replace Lethbridge with Lethbridge's son. But he's not quite old enough to have a son old enough to be interesting unless we radically rework his backstory. So we use the TARDIS."

"A generation of children are going to laugh at that name," Edgar observed.

"I like it. Here's what we do. We send them almost back to their own time, 1984. Rose grew up on a steady diet of eighties nostalgia, so she'll have fun. She'll run off to a Bangles concert or Madonna or someone. Lethbridge doesn't have good memories from the eighties because he spent the whole time getting shot down by girls and feeling awkward and uncool."

"With you so far."

"But he happens across this woman in a cafe -- we can play up the romantic comedy angle if we want. And they, well, get to know each other, in the biblical sense. She hears him talking about Rose to someone, figures it's a sister or mother, and calls her son Ross when he's born. Skip to the twenty-first century. When they finally do get back, young Ross has grown up and followed in his father's footsteps, according to stories from his mother. He's probably even worked under Lethbridge before, but they don't know they're related because Lethbridge gave Ross's mother a false name or something. My point is that later we'll get to see Lethbridge finally do the right thing, and then we'll see Ross trying to be his father's son in the Doctor's eyes."

Edgar blew air through his lips. "You make the stories sound so easy when you do that."

"That's because I'm a writer."

"So what's the Doctor doing during all this?"

"Feeling lonely, because his friends ditched him for a girl and a fashion era. He'll get tied up in an intrigue of course -- someone trying to take over the world via cordless telephones, fits into the George Orwell theme nicely. I like tapping into that fear of technology thing humanity has going these past few decades."

"You're starting to sound like the Doctor yourself. Don't forget Jack and his pretty kiddies, Ellis."

"No fear," Ellis smiled. "Torchwood's my first love; Doctor Who's just a dalliance. By the end of the year it'll roll along on its own, and I can do guest scripts."

"I like that better. You look tired."

"Up late finishing the new Torchwood script. We're taking Ian and Owen back to New York."

Edgar hesitated. "Does that mean -- "

"On location? Yes."

"God, I hate on-location," Edgar rested his head on his arms. He felt Ellis flick icewater from his glass onto his hair.

"It's good for the soul. Besides, New York is fun. I'll take you to see a show."

"Can I have ice cream afterwards?" Edgar asked, putting on a petulant five-year-old voice.

"With sprinkles," Ellis promised, smiling fondly at him.

***

Excerpt from the shooting script for Doctor Who 1x05: 1984  
Story & Teleplay by: Ellis Graveworthy  
Directed by: Edgar van Scyoc

INT - CAFE

LIZ JENKINS  
So, did you leave a girl back home in Illinois?

LETHBRIDGE  
Nah. Never had time. I mean, I did have time, but not for anything serious. I had a career. Have a career. Not much time for friends and wives and the rest.

LIZ JENKINS  
How's that working out for you?

LETHBRIDGE  
I'm not someone who needs a lot of people. And I have friends now, I mean. Just, I didn't really leave anyone back home.

LIZ JENKINS  
It sounds lonely.

LETHBRIDGE  
That's the price you pay, though. I've seen things most people can't imagine, on my country's dollar. I've met some pretty amazing people.

LIZ JENKINS  
Not here, though.

LETHBRIDGE  
I can think of one.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Torchwood's Owen Harper weakens and Tosh and Tommy improve relations with USPAT, the Doctor comes up against one of his oldest enemies. In the meantime, Ellis gives dramatic readings, Edgar gives interviews, and Mia takes every opportunity to make gentle fun. And a new cast member joins the Torchwood crew, a blues-playing Welshman who is very far from home.

TORCHWOOD 2x05: THE LAZARUS EXPERIMENT   
_When excavation into the ruins of Torchwood One reveals new and dangerous artifacts, Jack is summoned to New York to deal with their safe disposal. He brings Ian and Owen reluctantly, knowing each man has his own demons in the city, but the real trouble only begins when the men are invited to a charity function by the man intent on buying Torchwood One's former building site -- a man who is obsessed with immortality and has built a machine to make him young again. Except that youth, as always, comes with a price..._

Title: Forget  
By:   
Rating: PG  
Summary: Owen just wants to sleep; Ian just wants to forget.   
Author's Notes: While I know a million people are writing fic about Owen, Ian, and Jack in their tuxedos, and I'm sure there are a ton of threesome fics about Owen feeling like a third wheel, I thought I'd go in a different direction...

They drive back to the hotel in exhausted silence, bruises already rising from their battle with what had once been Richard Lazarus. Owen had, in a moment of unusual graciousness, let Ian have the front seat; he flopped onto the backseat with a groan and a complaint about Torchwood being self-propelled trouble magnets while Ian gingerly buckled himself in and Jack started the car. 

"I'm sorry," Jack says after a while, eyes still on the road as he drives through the dark New York streets. "I thought after the day we had, it might be fun to go to a party."

"Admit it," Ian answers, angling for a laugh, "You just wanted to see us in tuxedos."

Jack smiles a little. "Well, the appeal of walking into a swanky party with two well-dressed men isn't lost on me, you know."

When there's no reply from the back seat, outraged or otherwise, Ian twists to look back at Owen.

"I think he's sleeping," he says.

"Odd. Normally after life-threatening battles with fanged monsters he's wired," Jack observes.

"He doesn't normally get winded running down two flights of stairs, either. Guess today was hard on him, too."

Jack chews on his lip before answering. "Was it wrong to bring you here?"

"You didn't really have a choice."

"I could have taken Tosh and Tommy."

"They didn't know this Torchwood like we did." Ian shrugs. "Weird to see it like that. The last time I saw it, there was just this big pile of rubble. Now it's a clean little hole in the ground. One of the work-foremen said they're going to build another office block."

"Brilliant," Jack mutters.

"It'll be like it was never there. Or like it never fell. So I guess it's good," Ian mumbles.

"Good?"

"That we got to see it. To know that it's gone, it's not coming back." Ian stares out the window. "It's over."

"Does he feel guilty?"

"Who, Owen? Why?"

"For leaving. Abandoning everyone."

Ian frowned. "I don't know. He doesn't talk to me about it."

"Why not? I'd think of all the people he could talk to, you'd be the one."

"Then he just doesn't talk to anyone about it."

Jack looks up at the rearview mirror, catching just the edge of Owen's face, pressed against the seat.

"Do you feel guilty?" he asks, and glances at Ian.

"No. The odds of me getting out to begin with were pretty low, considering -- considering I had someone else to think about. I did everything I could. I refuse to feel guilty over that."

"You were quite silent today."

"We all were." Ian swallows. "I...thought about...talking about it. It's just that...in my memory, it's huge. It isn't just Torchwood, it's the city. I liked New York. I felt like I had a purpose, I know Owen didn't feel that way but to me just being a part of it -- but that leads into losing it. I didn't want to talk about that. Losing Torchwood."

"You didn't lose Torchwood."

"I would have, if I'd let you send me away."

Jack drums his fingers on the wheel as they pull into the hotel parking garage. 

"Then it's just as well you're a stubborn bastard, eh?" he asks, turning the car off. In the back seat, Owen shifts and moans, an unhappy and painful sound.

"I'll get him to his room," Ian sighs, opening the back door and easing Owen's arm over his shoulders. "Guess I couldn't talk you into ordering us something to eat."

"I'll see what I can do," Jack says.

Ian half-drags, half-carries Owen into the hotel, brushing off the front desk receptionist with the excuse of too much partying. A few years ago, according to Jack, it wouldn't even have been a lie; Ian never knew Owen worked for Torchwood until he came back to Chicago, but since then he's become aware that Owen wasn't happy in New York, and self-medicated that misery with less than stellar results. 

As he deposits Owen on the hotel-room bed and bends to take off his shoes, Owen's hand grips his shoulder with startling strength. He looks up to see Owen watching him warily.

"How did we get here?" Owen asks.

"We drove. You fell asleep," Ian answers, careful not to let any reproach into his voice.

"Oh," Owen says, looking confused. "My arm hurts."

"The paramedics said you were fine," Ian replies.

"Paperwork?"

"No, Owen. Get some sleep. I'm going to, in a minute."

"I'm _tired_ ," Owen complains.

"We all are."

"Do you miss New York?" Owen asks. 

"Not anymore. Do you?"

"God, it was awful," Owen mumbles. "When it all happened, Jack wouldn't let me go..."

"Probably a smart idea."

"I don't miss it."

Ian shoves him gently back onto the bed, then straightens and crosses his arms. "We're going home in the morning."

Owen smiles blissfully, curling into a ball and pulling the blanket around his shoulders. "Home," he says, and drifts off to sleep again.

When Ian quietly lets himself into Jack's room -- a large room, meant for two people, though technically Ian has a hotel room of his own down the hall -- Jack has raided the minibar and is eating M&Ms washed down with what looks like a whiskey tonic. He offers a glass to Ian, who drinks gratefully and sits next to him on the bed.

"I ordered food," he says, nuzzling Ian's neck affectionately.

"Room service is slow," Ian muses. 

"However will we fill the time?"

Ian looks at Jack, sees the regret and honest unhappiness in his face -- for being in New York, for putting his boys through hell, for having to kill Richard Lazarus, for everything.

"Make me forget," he says to Jack, and Jack smiles through the sadness and obliges. 

***

Transcript from an interview with Matt Lauer and Edgar van Scyoc on The Today Show, October 2008: 

Matt Lauer: So you've just wrapped filming in New York, are you staying in town for a few days?

Edgar van Scyoc: Actually we're flying back day after tomorrow, once we've finished doing -- the talk shows and everything. Don't get me wrong, I love New York, but I've got a million small fires to put out in Chicago, and Ellis is going straight to Vancouver to work with the writing team there. Plus I think the boys are kind of exhausted, so they'll get a little while to rest up while they finish filming Tosh and Tommy's episode, The Devil and the Deep. 

Matt Lauer: How did it feel to be in the middle of New York, filming a television show? 

Edgar van Scyoc: Pretty much like being in the middle of Chicago and filming a television show. It's not like this is my first time at the rodeo. What was more interesting was working with only a partial cast; in this episode Jack is sort of forced into bringing Ian and Owen back to New York, and it focuses very tightly on those three.

Matt Lauer: Now these characters don't have positive associations with this city, do they?

Edgar van Scyoc: That's a fair guess, yes. Which is pretty cool, you get to see them working through those issues, coming out the other side as better people. There were a couple of scenes we filmed, especially with Matt -- Ian -- that were very...emotional, even for me as the director on this one. Owen nearly killed himself in New York, and Ian lost his whole world when Torchwood New York was destroyed. And then on the other hand you get all three men in tuxedos being chased by a giant alien bug monster. There's something for everyone, really. 

***

TORCHWOOD 2x06: THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP   
_With Jack, Ian, and Owen in New York and Gwen on her honeymoon, Tosh and Tommy are left to hold the fort in Chicago. When an alien craft crashlands into Lake Michigan it seems at first like business as usual: a USPAT recovery team and a full study of the artifact. But then a storm rolls in, the boat breaks down, and a tentacled monster of the deep threatens to become the new big predator of the Great Lakes. Can Tamaki, Toshiko, and one young USPAT officer named Ross Jenkins save the day?_

Lieutenant Ross Jenkins leaned on the railing of the small recovery ship and rubbed the bridge of his nose. It was a mature gesture for such a young man, particularly Jenkins, who looked younger than he was -- twice that morning he'd been mistaken for a member of the recovery team instead of its leader. And there were moments when he wished that were true. 

USPAT might be covert ops but they had the full support of the military and the federal government. Torchwood had no such support, but for some reason even the lowest rung in Torchwood outranked the local command of USPAT, and that of course annoyed command into conniptions. Torchwood had simply called up and placed an order for a recovery team, and USPAT had been forced to jump-to, and now Jenkins -- who "sounded foreign" and was therefore always getting the shit jobs -- was getting an earful from his superiors. 

"Sir," he said patiently, "I'm afraid your signal's breaking up," though it wasn't. "Sir? Sir!"

He hung up the mobile and, for good measure, switched it off. The rest of the team would be on radio frequency anyway.

"I do that sometimes," said a voice at his elbow. He turned to see Tamaki Sato leaning on the railing nearby. 

"Agent Sato," Ross said carefully. "It appears that contact with USPAT command has been momentarily broken."

"Is that so, Lieutenant...Jenkins, right?" the man replied, grinning. He hitched his hip against the rail. 

"Yes, sir."

"No need to stand on formality. Call me Tommy. Besides, with two Agent Satos on one small boat, it's going to get old really fast."

Tommy turned to stare out at the water; the wind ruffled his hair, which if he'd been in USPAT was long enough, shaggy enough, messy enough, and dyed enough colors to get him unceremoniously dumped. And that was without even starting on his clothes, which were baggy and patched but in an artful, done-a'purpose sort of way. 

But of course Tommy and Toshiko Sato weren't USPAT. So it hardly mattered.

"Not to profile or anything, but you don't sound American," Tommy said.

"Naturalized citizen."

"And you're a little young to have your own command."

"I could say the same. USPAT's a little shaken-up at the moment, our major intel agent's gone missing."

"You're not supposed to tell me that, are you?" Tommy asked.

"Probably not. Anyway, I think it's nothing, everyone says the Colonel disappears all the time. USPAT thinks differently, so most of our men are on search detail. Hence, you're stuck with me."

"You're not too bad," Tommy replied. "Besides, this should be a cake walk. Tosh is getting a fix on the crash coordinates. From there she'll triangulate potential sinkage sites and we'll recover what we can."

"Sonar should pick it up, if it's as big as we think," Ross offered.

"Should, yeah, but it keeps her busy and she gets to show off for your boys."

"It can't be very important, anyway," Ross said. "No offense, but -- if it were, Captain Harkness would have come out too."

"He does love a boat," Tommy agreed. "But he's in New York for the week with the rest of the team. Even if it was a big deal we'd need to do primary recon before he got back." He tilted his face up to the darkening sky. "Weather looks nasty, huh?"

"We'll get in and get out," Ross said. "Won't take any time at all."

Famous last words.

***

When you're trapped inside a rickety boat on a storm-tossed sea with an alien tentacle monster looking for you, what you really want is a cigarette.

"How long until the neurotoxin takes effect?" Ross whispered to Tosh as he crawled across her legs to get to the dead bodies piled against the door. 

"Depends on how long those tentacles are," she whispered back. "We should have hit it with more than enough -- "

At that point Tommy flailed back into consciousness and Ross dove for him, clapping a hand over his mouth and pinning down his arms.

"It uses sonar. If we get above ninety decibels it'll find us," he whispered into Tommy's ear. Tommy nodded to show he'd heard, and Ross released him.

"What happened?" he croaked.

"You got hit in the head," Ross heard Tosh say, as he began rummaging in the dead mens' tac-vests. "We loaded up the Kraken out there with neurotoxin from the weapons kit."

"Awesome," Tommy whispered. "Ross, what're you doing?"

Ross bit down on a yelp of triumph and held up the still-dry pack of Parliaments he'd recovered from one man's vest.

"That's sick," Tosh whispered.

"What? He's not going to use them," Ross replied. 

"Are you allowed to smoke in USPAT?" Tommy asked. Ross gave him a withering look.

"I'm going to forgive you on the grounds of concussion," he said, and dug around for a lighter. 

"What's gonna happen if it finds us?" Tommy asked.

"Well," Ross deadpanned, "we know it's armed."

"It can't take more than another couple of minutes," Tosh said, over Tommy's quiet groan. "The storm should let up sometime in the next hour. Can you get the boat back to harbour with just the three of us?"

Ross was opening his mouth to reply when there was a metallic clanking noise, and then the creak of steel under pressure.

"Think it's found us," he said, stabbing out the cigarette he'd just lit. He grabbed onto a railing on the wall with one hand and Tommy's shirt with the other, pulling him over. "Grab something to hang onto, Tosh."

"Why?" Tosh asked. Ross grinned at her.

"Welcome to the rollercoaster," he said, right before the lights went out and gravity shifted drastically. 

The tentacles wrapping around the hull of the boat pulled it down and sideways, fighting its buoyancy, tossing the bodies inside against any available surface. The tumbling seemed to go on and on, crashing and creaking and any minute he expected to die, but then suddenly it stopped. The boat righted itself, equipment falling all over the place, and there was a second of blissful silence before the creature _screamed_ , screamed through the water, the soundwaves breaking over the boat and filling up their ears.

When it finally ended, Ross could hear breathing -- two people breathing, thank god.

"Okay, fine," he said, into the ringing silence. "I'll quit smoking already."

***

Transcript from the DVD Extras, Torchwood, Season Two: The Unlikely Welshman

Gareth David-Lloyd: Umm, the story of how I got the job...it's sort of funny actually. We were, um, on tour -- the blues band I front -- and we'd got up enough money to get over here but we sort of, um, ran out of money to get back. So we were stuck in Chicago, which if you're a blues band is...I guess a good place to be stuck, and we were doing a set at Kingston Mines. At the time I'd seen maybe, I think, an episode of Torchwood or something, it's not licenced in the UK yet. And this woman in the bar, Mia Lee, who is our, uh, our art director, said they were casting and she thought I'd be good for a role, gave me her card and said she'd get me in. I thought it was just a little one-off part so I read for it and umm...I guess they liked me.

Off-camera voice: Did the rest of your band ever get home?

Gareth David-Lloyd: [nervous laugh] Yeah, my first paycheck, I bought them tickets home. And I, uh, stayed. [another laugh] I think really Mia just wanted to see me in one of those yellow USPAT berets. 

***

Excerpt from the shooting script for Episode 2x06: The Devil And The Deep.  
Story by: Edgar van Scyoc  
Teleplay by: Ellis Graveworthy and Anna Jackson

INT - HUB - EVENING

TOSH and TOMMY are sitting on the couch, exhausted. Both of them are in much more ordinary clothes than usual, which appear to be stolen from the stash the others keep at the HUB. The sound of the rolldoor is heard.

JACK OS  
Honey, we're home!

TOSH and TOMMY run to greet the others, hugging them and laughing. 

TOSH  
Oh my god! How was New York?

JACK  
Smelly. 

IAN  
Also, hellbeasts. 

TOMMY  
All in a day's work, huh?

OWEN  
More or less. 

IAN sets down a cardboard box labeled DO NOT OPEN.

IAN  
Brought you some toys.

TOSH  
Cool! 

TOSH begins digging through the box, showing shiny things to TOMMY.

JACK  
How about you. Chicago keep quiet while we were gone? 

TOSH and TOMMY share a look. 

TOSH  
Mostly.

TOMMY  
We had some fun out on the lake. 

JACK  
I'm going to get memos about this, aren't I.

TOSH  
Maybe one or two. 

TOMMY  
We got Owen something.

OWEN  
What?

TOMMY  
It's in the grotto.

OWEN pushes past them and makes for the GROTTO.

JACK  
What happened?

TOSH  
Well, there was this spaceship...

OWEN OS  
WHY IS THERE A TENTACLE ON MY OPERATING TABLE?

Blackout. 

***

DOCTOR WHO 1x06: DALEK   
_The Doctor, still trying to get back to 21st century Chicago, is distracted by a distress beacon and lands the TARDIS in Utah in 2012. The Doctor, Rose, and Lethbridge find themselves in a veritable museum of alien technology that shouldn't be there. When they're captured by the owner of the museum, a grasping inhumane businessman named Henry Van Slatten, the Doctor is faced with his worst enemy: a machine-bound alien known as a Dalek, which he believed were wiped out long ago. When the Dalek is inadvertently freed, the museum becomes a pitched battleground between the Doctor and the Dalek -- which must end in genocide for one of these ancient races._

Excerpt from the shooting script for Episode 1x06: Dalek.  
Story & Teleplay by: Ellis Graveworthy and Derek Smith

INT - TARDIS 

LETHBRIDGE is leaning on the TARDIS console, trying to be as much in the way as possible while the DOCTOR studiously ignores him. 

LETHBRIDGE  
So, nice weather we're having.

DOCTOR  
If you're going to get in the way, go away.

LETHBRIDGE  
I'm fine where I am, thank you.

DOCTOR  
That wasn't a request.

LETHBRIDGE  
Listen, you haven't said two words to me since we left 1984. 

DOCTOR  
Has it been that many? I must be losing my touch.

LETHBRIDGE  
Why are you so mad at me?

DOCTOR  
Take three wild guesses.

They begin to get into each others' personal space, aggressively. 

LETHBRIDGE  
Very mature, o aged representative of an ancient and venerable race. 

DOCTOR   
Well, I find I have to lower myself to humanity's level to make myself understood. 

ROSE   
[entering]  
Doctor, I was wondering --   
[she sees them glaring at each other]  
Oh. Awkward. I'll come back later.

DOCTOR   
Humans always run off.

LETHBRIDGE  
Seriously, that's what you're being all pissy about? Rose ran off on you too. 

DOCTOR  
Rose didn't sleep with the first pre-millennium pointy-brassiered floozy she --

LETHBRIDGE  
One, great mental image, thank you, and two, she wasn't a floozy. Who even says that word anymore?

DOCTOR  
You had sex with someone from another time!

LETHBRIDGE  
So what?

DOCTOR  
Sex is powerful. It's deep and old and the most basic instinct humanity has. Most basic instinct of any animal. Propagate the species. Carry on the line. It's the only weapon aside from fists that the human body has built in. It's the basis for evolution, union and cycle and -- you transferred a part of yourself into someone else, you created the potential for a part of yourself to exist after your death. That's not something that should be taken lightly but you, you just flung your DNA around --

LETHBRIDGE  
Jesus, it's just sex!

DOCTOR  
Will you listen to yourself?

LETHBRIDGE  
You change things all the time, you kill people!

DOCTOR  
Because I know what I'm doing!

LETHBRIDGE  
And I don't?

DOCTOR  
No, of course you don't! You don't hear the galaxy singing to you, you can't taste time, you can't hear the pulse of the world. Someday humanity might but you're totally numb to almost everything around you and you don't even know it. You have no clue what you're doing and -- this never comes to any good. 

In the CORRIDOR, ROSE is eavesdropping; she clutches the wall tightly as he speaks, her face agonised.

DOCTOR  
I'm just going to have to take you both ho -- ooooooh.

LETHBRIDGE  
[mocking]  
Hoooooooh?

DOCTOR  
Shut up. Distress signal. Sit down and don't say anything. 

***

Ellis once told Edgar that it was an old French tradition that the playwright, at the first meeting of the actors for a production, would get up on stage and read out his play, acting out the various parts and voices. Edgar found it oddly charming that Ellis felt compelled to repeat a ritual he wasn't even a part of by cultural heritage, but it had the strange effect of bringing the cast and crew closer together. When more than one person had worked on a script, they read in ensemble; when it was just one person, whoever they were, they followed Ellis's example and went to the rehearsal room, whether or not anyone else decided to show up, the night before first read-through.

People did show up, more and more as time went on, bringing snacks and hauling comfortable chairs into the room to watch the performance. Edgar always came, when he could, especially when it was the junior writers who were reading. He was torn between enjoying their discomfort at his presence and hoping that they felt he was there for some kind of moral support. 

And it was wonderful to hear Ellis read, he would admit. 

" _The Doctor turns to Rose,_ " Ellis read, executing a slight turn to the right, his face earnest and solemn. "I have to destroy it. It won't stop until it destroys me, and then it'll -- I don't know what it'll do, it'll do to Earth what it did to Gallifrey." He paused. " _Rose, curious and horrified:_ What's Gallifrey?"

Edgar heard a handful of people take anticipatory breaths; they'd waited as long as the viewers had to hear the secret of Gallifrey. Ellis turned front, facing an imaginary camera, eyes off to the left slightly.

"I'm the last of my kind," he said, sadly. "Gallifrey was my home, the home of my species, my race. Beautiful cities full of spires reaching to the sky...and now it's not even a memory, except to me. My people are gone. They died to destroy that -- to destroy those things. There was a war and time itself convulsed with the violence of it, the Time Lords against the Daleks. Thirty thousand miles of fire burned at the battlefield over Arcadia, the last stronghold of Gallifrey. The stars nearby still echo with the screams of both races. I thought they had all been destroyed but -- but somehow the Daleks survived, falling through time."

Edgar saw Ellis take a deep breath.

"They always survive," he said. "And I lose everything." 

Silence for a moment. Edgar looked sidelong at the crew and cast sitting nearby, faces rapt. Ellis modulated his voice slightly to Lethbridge's nasal tones.

"It looks like an industrial vacuum cleaner to me. _Rose swats him on the arm._ " The Doctor's voice. "They exist to kill. It's the last one, and I'm going to burn it to atoms." 

Ellis reached out for a bottle of water nearby and took a sip. "And, end act two. I need to hydrate. Five minute commercial break, brought to you by Kraft Singles, the official prepackaged cheese of Doctor Who."

Edgar waited until everyone left the room to smoke or have a drink or a pee, and then leaned back.

"You shouldn't be wasting that huge brain of yours on cheap science fiction," he said.

Ellis looked at him over the edge of the water bottle, swallowed, wiped his mouth. "No. But I've sort of fallen in love with them now."

"Is that so," Edgar smiled. 

"It is. Wait until you hit act four, where the Doctor tells Rose and Lethbridge that maybe he needs humans around, right at the end. It'll be killer onscreen."

"It always is."

***

From Who's Talking, the official Doctor Who Extras website:

Telephone transcript, Torchwood archives, 9/12/2012.

GL: Leone speaking.  
Col.L: This is Colonel Gordon Lethbridge. I need to be transferred to USPAT Base Twelve.  
GL: I'm sorry, sir, what did you say?  
Col.L: I don't have a whole lot of time, I need to speak to the USPAT base in Utah.  
GL: And your name is Gordon Lethbridge?  
Col.L: What kind of idiot are you?  
GL: I'm sorry, sir, but Colonel Lethbridge was listed as missing, presumed dead two years ago.  
Col.L: Did you people not get the memo about me taking off in a flying time machine? I have information I need to get to USPAT headquarters. I tried to get it to you sooner but I couldn't without crossing my own timeline.  
GL: These things can be tricky.  
COl.L: I need a recovery team sent to my location.  
GL: I'm afraid that's not possible. USPAT has been disbanded.  
Col.L: _What?_ Why did you answer this number?  
GL: It was assigned to Torchwood when we took over, sir. I can probably scare up an army ops unit if you give me a few minutes --   
Col.L: Fine, whatever, can you please put me through to General Stewart?  
GL: General Stewart is dead, sir.  
Col.L: What the hell have you boys been doing while I was away?   
GL: Sir, if you can give me the information --   
Col.L: The Doctor is here, in Utah, and I need a recovery team to help me detain him.  
GL: The Doctor?  
Col.L: Oh my god --   
[In the background: COLONEL, WHERE ARE YOU?]  
Col.L: I need to go. I'll -- put the information in the mail to you or something, is the drop box still open?  
GL: Just address it to Gianni Leone, Torchwo --   
[Background: COLONEL, COME ON, WE NEED TO GO!]  
GL: Torchwood, Chicago. It'll reach us.  
Col.L: Okay, I -- okay.   
GL: Glad to be of service, Colonel. Safe journey.  
[Background: I CAN'T STOP IT, GUNS DON'T WORK -- ]  
Transcript ends.

***

TORCHWOOD 2x07: THE ONLY GOOD OWEN   
_On a routine trip to Springfield to assist an excavation, Owen collapses and briefly stops breathing. Though at first glance it looks like a reaction to the excavation site, Jack begins to worry when Owen's strength fails to return and Owen admits that he's been suffering from muscle tremors and exhaustion ever since he was revived. Realizing that the Doctor's revival of Owen was imperfect, the Team rushes to save him before he slips away from them completely. Jack may have one way of preserving Owen's life, but will it cost Owen everything to get it?_

Transcript of the audio commentary for Torchwood 2.07, with Burn Gorman and Hiro Mizushima:

Burn: We actually thought that a scene between Tommy and Owen in the afterlife would be pretty funny.

Hiro: Oh, yes! 

Burn: Because...Owen wakes up, can't see anything, thinks he's had a whopping hangover. He says, you know, where are we -- 

Hiro: In the dark! But Tommy catches on fast, so he'd reply, "I think we're dead."

Burn: And there's only one reaction to that, of course, in the dark, dead, no consequences, so Owen would turn -- metaphorically -- to Tommy and say, "Wanna make out?"

Hiro: "And I thought the afterlife couldn't get any worse."

***

None of them were particularly fond of hospitals, but they all agreed that if Owen was actually going to be sick, he couldn't very well rig up anything to look after himself in the medical grotto. So they took him to the hospital and sat in the waiting room, hands cupped around awful coffee, speaking in low tones. 

"Tommy?" Jack said, his face drawn and tired. "How are you feeling?"

Tommy gave him a guilty look. "I feel fine. Probably better than I did before."

"Could he be stealing...this sounds stupid," Ian said. "Could he be drawing on Owen's, uh, life-energy?"

Jack shook his head. "I don't think so. They're not showing any signs of linkage otherwise. I think...I think something got mucked up with Owen. Something went wrong. And now it's wearing off, and his body's shutting down as the energy leaves it."

Gwen looked down at her coffee cup. "Is there anything we can do?"

"I don't know," Jack said.

"Well, there must be something!"

Tosh wrapped one hand around Gwen's, thumb rubbing soothingly across her knuckles. "We'll think of something."

"We don't know what he did or how it works," Gwen said miserably. 

"Well, that's never stopped us before," Ian pointed out. He glanced sidelong at Jack, lips thinning. Jack gave him a warning look.

"He's not dead yet," Tommy said. "There's gotta be something they can do. Vitamins or something."

"I don't think an intravenous caffeine drip is going to work," Jack sighed. 

"There might be..." Ian ventured, glancing at Jack again.

"What?" Tosh asked.

"Messing with life force is dangerous," Jack said warningly. "We know what happened to Suzie."

"Yeah, but..." Gwen bit her lip. "I mean, she was a little nuts to start with."

"She was a good person," Jack retorted.

"Besides, the glove's been destroyed," Tommy added.

"Jack," Ian said. Jack met his eyes, shook his head, and leaned back.

"Fine. Tell them."

"We recovered something in New York, about three years ago," Ian said. "I was research aide for the team that studied it. Artifact 3G-19A5."

"Catchy name," Gwen said.

"We called it the Grip'n'Rip." Ian smiled slightly. "My name for it. It's in archives at the Hub."

"It's too dangerous," Jack said.

"It lifts your personality out of your head. We think," Ian continued. "We only ever tried it on animals. Somehow it reproduces your neural patterns. Plug it into a computer, put your head in a CPU. We put a rabbit into a toy robot dog once."

"Sounds useful," Gwen said carefully.

"Except the amount of sensory input required for a human doesn't exist in robotics," Jack said sharply. "Put a person's mind into a machine with no senses and they go insane. Total sensory deprivation. So you can't leave them in the machine. You have to transfer them to something else. Anyone here have a spare sensory-enhanced android lying around? No? Off the table, then."

"It'd buy us time," Ian said, defensively. "The slower he loses energy -- "

"He's not a battery," Jack replied. "And I'm not going to lock Owen up on a hard drive."

***

Edgar sat looking at the sketch of the Grip'n'Rip personality transferrence device, his head slightly tilted to one side.

"She's mad as a hatter," Ellis said. "She keeps _a hamster_."

Edgar smiled. "I think there's a kind of charm in it. And you can't actually say any of what she wrote is untrue, can you?"

Ellis raised his eyebrows. "Been keeping tabs on me, Edgar?"

"Of course. Anyway, it's a genius design. Even if I didn't like her, which I do, we'd have to keep her; she's the best there is."

***

Excerpt from the shooting script for Episode 2x07: The Only Good OWen.  
Story & Teleplay by: Ellis Graveworthy  
Directed by: Edgar van Scyoc and David Tennant

INT - HUB - MEDICAL GROTTO

GWEN presses the injector-pen to JACK's neck.

GWEN  
Sorry, Jack.

JACK collapses. 

IAN  
[leaning over OWEN on the operating table]  
Owen? Can you hear me?

TOMMY  
Ian, we have to do it now.

IAN  
Owen, try not to freak out. 

IAN clamps the Grip'n'Rip onto OWEN's head. The jewel at the front glows green; there is a brief sizzle, and IAN starts back with a yelp. OWEN exhales and stops breathing.

IAN  
[tossing the coil of wires across the table]  
Tommy!

TOMMY plugs the wires into the wall of the HUB and hesitates, his hand on the switch.

GWEN  
Tommy, do it! 

TOMMY slams the switch up. Sparks fly. OWEN convulses; the HUB falls into darkness momentarily before emergency lights come on. TOSH is already fixing electrodes to OWEN's chest and helping GWEN lift him into a drawer. 

As they slam it shut JACK gasps and flails, grabbing GWEN's leg. 

JACK  
[looking up]  
What did you do?

ALL look at him.

JACK  
WHAT DID YOU DO?

TOMMY  
Owen?

OWEN's voice comes over the loudspeakers, sounding slightly mechanised.

OWEN  
Tommy? Where am I?

Several cameras in the grotto swivel to focus on the group. 

OWEN  
What the HELL HAVE YOU DONE?

Blackout.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doctor who, gaining in its reputation as the Scariest Show on Television, brings stories of the first manned lunar landing and creatures who live in the darkness to the television, while Torchwood adapts to a team member without a body and Jack begins to face up to his past with the arrival of Captain John Hart. A Christmas Crossover brings the two shows together, and Edgar and Ellis face up to a few truths of their own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The book Ellis Graveworthy reads from is called Recycling Shakespeare, by Charles Marowitz. It was written yea these many years ago, and it is my secret belief that the internet term "wank" originated with someone who had read his works.

DOCTOR WHO 1x07: THE IMPOSSIBLE PLANET   
_The Doctor, Rose, and Lethbridge land on a science station on a planet that shouldn't exist, in orbit around a black hole, staffed by a slave race overseen by a handful of humans, covered in strange alien writing that even the TARDIS can't translate. When the TARDIS falls victim to an earthquake that knocks it deep into the heart of the planet, the Doctor must lead a dangerous mission to retrieve it -- especially when it becomes their only chance of escape. But something is lurking deep inside the planet..._

DOCTOR WHO 1x08: THE SATAN PIT   
_The TARDIS crew, along with the four surviving members of a science team stranded on a planet orbiting a black hole, are trapped deep under the surface. In order to reach the TARDIS they have to go forward, because there's no going back -- but there's something down there, in the dark, with the crew. Can the Doctor stop the Vashta Nerada before it's too late?_

***

Transcript from the DVD Extras, Doctor Who, Season One: The Magic PDA:

Joe Flanigan, standing in the foreground in costume; Hayden Panettiere, not in costume, can sometimes be seen on the left of the screen, talking to a Production Assistant. On the right, Ellis Graveworthy is seated in a chair working on a script.

Joe: This. [Holds up prop PDA] This is Colonel Lethbridge's _Magic PDA_. I've had this for seven episodes now and the Colonel has taken all his notes on it and even tried to mail it to Torchwood. Dear diary, went to the Renaissance today. Two words for you: Chamber Pots. 

Ellis: We wanted to get him an iPhone but they wanted to charge us to use the name.

Joe: Bastards!

Ellis: Bastards!

Joe: So, anyway, this is a -- where did we get this? I think van Scyoc donated it. [turns it over and pretends to read] Property of...E...van...S. 

Hayden, offscreen: We're high class at Doctor Who!

Joe: Anyway, the Colonel's been putting it into pretty constant use for at least a couple of weeks, and he hasn't once had to charge it or change the batteries. It just goes on forever, like there's some kind of nuclear reactor in it or something. If I open it up, _I'll die._

Ellis: No, that's not right. It has a charger.

Joe: Where does it have a charger?

Ellis: In the TARDIS console. 

Joe: Yeah, in some [flails hands] imaginary world...

Ellis: No, really, the charger for it is in the TARDIS console. It's probably wired up and all. 

Joe: Are you serious?

John Barrowman wanders past in an orange descent suit as Ellis gestures at the console to the right of where he's sitting. The camera swings around as Joe approaches the console like it might eat him. Camera zooms in. There's a PDA charger embedded in the set, next to a glued-down rubik's cube and a large metal lever.

Joe: THere it is! [gleeful] There's my PDA charger!

Ellis: [as Joe is already plugging the PDA into the charger] Go on, plug it in -- 

The PDA lights up and reads "SERVICE NOT FOUND". Joe and Ellis cheer ("Hey!" "Hooray!"). In the background, John shakes his head and laughs. Joe turns to the camera.

Joe: And that's the magic of television, boys and girls.

***

TORCHWOOD 2x08: BOOM TOWN   
_There's a new governor in the state of Illinois, and she has big plans for a nuclear power plant outside of Chicago. The only problem is that the new governor is an alien, and her plans include blowing the plant up to get the necessary kinetic energy to escape Earth. Torchwood finds it almost too easy to apprehend the intergalactic criminal -- but then must figure out what to do with her while they wait for her homeworld to send a retrieval ship. Meanwhile, Owen is adjusting to life as the man in the machine -- and the rest of the team is having to adjust to a Hub that suddenly answers them back._

Springfield didn't have great associations for anyone just at the moment -- the memory of Owen's collapse was too fresh in their minds -- but Gwen found herself riding along with Ian and Jack on the road south out of Chicago, headed for the state capital and the governor's office. Jack drummed his fingers on the wheel as he drove, and in the backseat Ian was sorting through paperwork, carefully assembling a binder of information.

"Meeting the governor," she said, grinning at Jack. "Kind of exciting, huh?"

"Eh," Jack replied. "Been there, done that. Love the uniform, though."

Gwen fingered the trim on her dress uniform. "Thanks. Weird to be in uniform again."

"We should have a Torchwood uniform. Ian -- "

"No," Ian called without looking up. Jack made a mock-unhappy face. 

"He doesn't like the drive to Springfield," he said to Gwen. "Makes him cranky."

"It's like this whenever power changes hands," Ian said, still not looking up from his work. "That's why I like Daley. He grew up around all this, we've never had to explain anything to him. He just gets it."

Jack turned to Gwen, eyes flicking back to the road occasionally. "Whenever there's a significant shift in the power dynamics -- new governor, new senate majority leader -- new US president, come to think of it -- someone's got to go have a bit of a sit-down with them so that they understand the nature of Torchwood's existence. Especially when it's something to do with Illinois in specific."

"I'm still not exactly sure why you asked me to come along," Gwen said. 

"Oh, didn't I say? You're the good cop. Literally, which is nicely fitting."

"And you're the bad cop?" Gwen asked.

"That's the idea. A little healthy fear of Torchwood never hurt anyone."

"So what's Ian?" Gwen asked, grinning at him in the rearview mirror.

"Eye candy," Ian replied. Jack chuckled.

"Three's a nice round number," he said. "Anyway, I need someone to -- "

"Jack." Owen's voice emerged from the car stereo speakers, making Gwen and Ian flinch. 

"Yes, Owen," Jack called to the air, seemingly at ease while the other two exchanged nervous looks. 

"Tommy's been brushing up on the Governor's dossier. Went a little further back into her history."

"And?"

"And she doesn't have one before the late nineties," Ian put in, as information began to scroll across the computer screen embedded in the back of Jack's seat. 

"Also, he'd like you to know that she eats a macrobiotic diet exclusively," Owen put in. Images of broccoli and bowls of lentils began appearing on the front-seat computer monitors.

"What do you mean, she doesn't have a history?"

"It's like she just popped into existence," Ian said. "Owen, is this accurate?"

"Questioning my research?" Owen asked. 

"Sorry, but just because you read it on the internet doesn't mean it's true."

"It's what I'm not reading on the internet. The dataload from inside the computer is pretty awesome, by the way."

"Yes, we're all very impressed with your processing speed," Jack said. 

"What's it mean?" Gwen asked. "Does it matter that she eats healthy?"

"Aliens tend to be unable to handle food processed for humans," Jack said, jaw tightening. "Owen, can you cross-reference her diet with the database and narrow it to humanoid or shapeshifting races?"

"Can do. I'll hit you back in five."

"Hold on. Thirty seconds ago we were going to go scare the hell out of the governor," Gwen said. "Now all of a sudden she's an alien? She's a democrat!"

"I voted Green Party," Ian said absently.

***

From the Torchwood Quotes File, part of The Unofficial Torchwood Fansite:

The Torchwood Hub is hooked into the most advanced computer system in the world, an organic processor interfaced directly with twenty-first century technology. It can access any traffic or security camera in the country, flick through a thousand websites in the blink of an eye, manipulate information on a dozen different military and law-enforcement networks, take weather readings, convert visual and audio images into pure data, and control any device operated by a computer with a wireless transponder. It can alter the courses of satellites, intercept telephone calls and GPS transmissions, and control the data flow to millions. The one thing it can't do is touch. -- Owen Harper

Governor Blaine: They have the death penalty on my world.  
Jack: Not my problem. They have it here, too.   
Governor Blaine: You'd send me to my death, just like that?  
Jack: Tomorrow morning, when the Slitheen prisoner ship arrives, I'll send you and I'll be smiling. Nobody messes with my city.   
Governor Blaine: So you're my executioner.  
Ian: Do you deserve death?  
Governor Blaine: Does anyone?   
Jack: When the reactor went down, the rift would have gone down with it. Energy waves like you wouldn't believe. It would have shaken the world to pieces. So forgive me for not shedding a tear over your execution.  
Governor Blaine: You're quick to soak your hands in my blood, though. It's a long night until dawn...let's see how many of you can look me in the eye. 

Owen: Ian. Ian. Ian. I'm bored. Ian. Ian.  
Ian: [holds up a sheet of paper with "Buzz off, iWen" scrawled on it]

***

Sam's Three Things about Torchwood, 2.08: Boom Town

1\. I was highly skeptical about Owen being turned into the Disembodied Voice du Jour, but I think they're handling it really well -- we're getting a full-on dose of his misery and confinement, but we're also seeing the flexible-minded Torchwood team teasing and needling him to get him to react. It's nice that he still has emotions, that he's in a machine but isn't _actually_ a machine. I'll be interested to see how this subplot plays out, because it's fun now but it's a very character-limiting plot for Burn Gorman. I'm willing to bet that it doesn't last even until the end of the season before they find a way to bring him back. And my first reaction to Jack's remark about Owen always watching was AHAHAHA NAKED HIDE AND SEEK but on second thought, now we're going to get flooded with cheap and horrible hide and seek fanfics where Owen gets off on it somehow. Ack.

2\. In case it wasn't evident that Ian now and forever pwns everyone and everything, his sad little "We're all going to die" after Owen announces he can remotely drive the car? Was awesome personified. Also, the real reason Jack took him to meet the governor is his SEKRIT MAFIA TIES. (Like paisley ties, only more violent.)

3\. I love, _love_ the conversation between Governor The Slitheen and Jack, when she's tempting him out to dinner. "Can you sit with a creature you're about to kill and take supper?" and of course Jack says yes, because Jack loves new experiences. I bet he eats at that insane molecular gastronomy place downtown where they have like, levitating desserts and stuff.

3a. OMG WTF SMITH AND WOLLENSKY, I've had dinner there! But not with aliens.

***

**[ kinkocopier ] posted on fandom_wank at 9:35 AM: Did someone time how long that took?**

I'm pretty sure you could have used a stopwatch to measure how long it took Torchwood fandom to go from zero to wank over last night's episode. 

SPOILER WARNING: I'm summarizing last night's episode. If you haven't seen it, go watch it. I'll still be here when you get back. 

For those who aren't in the fandom, the episode was called "Boom Town" and was about an EVIL ALIEN POLITICIAN (what are the odds?) who wants to use a nuclear power plant to blow up Chicago. Needless to say, our heroes have to stop her. Here's the thing, though: Stopping the alien isn't the major plot. The major plot is that once they've stopped her they summon the SPACE POLICE to come take her to her homeworld where she's scheduled for execution. She manages to seem pretty pathetic and sympathy-worthy right around the middle part of the episode, then pulls a bitchface right at the end and nearly blows up the world _again_.

Reactions are mixed, but most people are no more or less wanky than usual. (Half of fandom spent the night sleeping with the lights on after Doctor Who.) Then **whoisthedoc** decides to make a post declaring HER THOUGHTS ON ~~YAOI~~ THE DEATH PENALTY. **whoisthedoc** believes that not only should the Torchwood crew not have called the SPACE POLICE, but they should have set her free (because she was only blowing up the Earth as an escape plan!). The Death Penalty is evil and barbarous, and ALSO she hated the episode because surely advanced space races, while perfectly cool with blowing up planets and stuff, are too sophisticated to have anything so old-school and socially incorrect as the death penalty. 

Even this wouldn't have been a big deal, except she crossposted it to every goddamn community she's a member of.

Reactions to this are less mixed; the above links go to particularly good threads. Personal favorites:

_I support the death penalty for wanky fans who think we care._  
and  
 _Hey, whoisthedoc, Ellis Graveworthy called. He'd like his soapbox back. He says you're ruining its street cred._

Eventually it devolves into burbling over whether "execution by vaporization" is cruel (there's pretty general consensus that it's unusual) and whether Ian shed a single emo tear over Governor Blaine's passing (answer: NO). 

Edgar van Scyoc reads the comms. Five gets you ten he is weeping in his cornflakes this morning over his audience base being _morons_. 

***

"What on earth are you doing?" Ellis Graveworthy asked, standing in the doorway of the writers' communal room.

"Taking constructive criticism," Edgar replied, reaching up to tape yet another printed page to the wall.

"Oh my god, you've gone mad, you're wallpapering our offices with spam."

"No! No. Do you know what a wank is?"

Silence from the doorway. Edgar looked over to find Ellis gazing at him steadily over the top of his glasses.

"Not that kind of wank! An internet wank."

Ellis's expression didn't change. Edgar set down the tape and rolled his eyes.

"It's a slang term on the internet for an argument that gets out of control."

"D'you know," Ellis said, walking into the room and studying the half of the wall already covered in scotch-taped paper, "I've had many arguments that have got out of control and I can't think of one that ended in masturbation. Actually, that could have been entertaining," he added absently, pulling a pen out of his pocket and beginning to correct the punctuation on the nearest page. 

"No, like...when people start shouting rabidly at each other and saying stuff just to show how smart they are, that's called a wank."

"Ah. Like Marowitz."

"Who?"

"Philistine." Ellis capped the pen and took a book down from a nearby shelf, thumbing it open. He cleared his throat. " _Intellectually speaking, when we say someone is wanking we usually mean he is indulging in personal ratiocination without direct reference to the subject at hand. Wanking implies working up a quantity of useful energy and then squandering it on personal satisfaction which, pleasurable as it may be to the wanker, does not fertilise any seed or benefit anyone else. The yardstick of successful wanking is the amount of notoriety your wanks will incite._ "

Edgar swallowed.

"Yeah, that's about it," he said. Ellis smiled down at the book.

"No idea is original, and no consensus of peoples exists without a root," he said, holding the book up and waggling it slightly. "Close your mouth, Edgar."

"Um," Edgar said, waving a hand at the paper. "So anyway, I printed out the good points and some of the interesting arguments."

Ellis opened the book again.

" _The crowning success of a wanker is to transfer them into the minds of non-wankers who are dealing practically with material which the wanker deals with only pornographically. Now his theories must be either validated or nullified -- and, because this is a prospect as daunting as it is tantalising, the majority of wankers prefer to wank in private, and never wander into the public arena._ " He shut the book. "Don't become a testing ground for wankers, Edgar; I won't have you second-guessing my writers either. Take it all down and come have breakfast."

"You go ahead," Edgar managed. "I...need a few minutes."

Ellis shrugged, pressed the book into his hands, and disappeared down the corridor. Edgar sat down heavily.

Condescending intellectualism really shouldn't be so hot.

***

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/copperbadge/pic/0067c4cs)

The second novel in the Torchwood series, "Hub", chronicles the thoughts and trials of Owen Harper, a man trapped in a machine. As an integrated program in the Hub, Owen has instantaneous access to any open network in the world -- but he can't help his team as a doctor or as a field agent, and he can't do anything to stop Toshiko from falling in love with someone who isn't just numbers and electricity -- but who might be more dangerous than any of the team imagines. 

***

TORCHWOOD 2x09: MURDER IN THE PLAZA   
_When Ian trips over a body on his way across Daley Plaza one morning, the team decide to solve an old-fashioned murder with Torchwood style. Gwen returns to her old precinct to take over the case, but not everyone welcomes her back -- and suddenly solving this murder might be more important than she'd dreamed._

**dark_hark** wrote: 

I loved the old-fashioned look of this episode and all the noir touches and the references to old golden age detectives, so I thought I'd make some icons. I don't know, do you think Gwen would make a good Sherlock Holmes? Maybe she Cares too much. Anyway, I hope you like them. 

***

DOCTOR WHO 1x09: THE IDIOT'S LANTERN  
 _The Doctor, Lethbridge, and Rose arrive in 1969, on the day before the launch of Apollo 11. Rose, who has never seen a lunar landing in her lifetime, is nonplussed; Lethbridge, who chose USPAT over offers from NASA, is excited to relive his youthful viewing of the liftoff. Hundreds of thousands of people will be watching the launch on television, but something inside the wires is trying to get out...trying to_ feed. 

EXT - DAY - CAPE CANAVERAL

LETHBRIDGE, the DOCTOR, and ROSE are sitting in beach chairs, wearing sunglasses and surrounded by a crowd of eager onlookers, everyone focused in the direction of the Apollo 11 rocket about to take off. ROSE, in sunbathing kit, is rubbing suntan lotion on her arms. LETHBRIDGE is clutching a camera and looking geeky.

ROSE  
God, could you be any more of a NASA dork?

LETHBRIDGE  
Says the woman who can name every member of the original Survivor cast.

DOCTOR  
Children.

ROSE  
So what're you gonna do with The Wire? Is she gone for good?

DOCTOR   
Stashed on a videotape. Just to be on the safe side, I'll use my unrivaled knowledge of trans temporal extirpation methods to neutralise the residual electronic pattern.

LETHBRIDGE  
You're gonna tape over her?

DOCTOR  
I'm doing it as we speak. When it's done you'll have a priceless betamax copy of the Apollo 11 launch. 

ROSE  
What, _Star Trek_ wasn't available?

LETHBRIDGE  
Hey, do you mind?

DOCTOR  
Rose, can I ask you something?

ROSE  
You can ask me a lot of things.

DOCTOR  
You stepped in front of Magpie when I was going to shoot him.

ROSE  
Lucky move. I couldn't see a thing.

DOCTOR  
Why?

ROSE  
Didn't have any eyes.

DOCTOR  
Why'd you step in front of him?

ROSE  
There wasn't any reason to shoot him. You were just angry. That's a dumb reason to kill someone.

DOCTOR and LETHBRIDGE both look at her, questioningly. She shrugs.

ROSE  
I've seen the future. A little of it, anyway. I guess humans aren't going to get any nicer if we always pick shooting. You're supposed to be some wise old alien, you should set an example. If you're not going to do the right thing, I'll just make you do it.

DOCTOR  
How do you mean?

ROSE  
I'm going to be your conscience, Doctor. Whether you want it or not.

DOCTOR  
Rose, I don't -- 

LETHBRIDGE  
THERE IT GOES!

All three turn to look as the rocket lifts off in a glorious plume of fire and smoke. ROSE stares, stunned. The crowd explodes into unbridled cheers and applause. 

LETHBRIDGE  
[shouting]  
There goes humanity. Reaching for the stars.

DOCTOR  
[shouting back]  
Good old humanity.  
[glances at ROSE]  
Always ready to surprise me.

Focus in tight on ROSE, her face transforming from shock to ecstasy as the sounds of the crowd fade away and we see the arch of the rocket's contrail reflected in her eyes.

Blackout. 

***

TORCHWOOD 2x10: THE CHRISTMAS INVASION   
_As they prepare for Christmas the Torchwood team is surprised to find Jack sick -- none more so than Jack himself. There's no time for chicken soup, however; aliens are invading, and their ability to harness pure energy is unlike anything anyone's ever seen. With Jack out of commission it's up to his team to take care of business, or the Sycorax will take care of it for them. And then there's one very unusual Christmas guest to contend with..._

It wasn't exactly rare for the writing teams of Torchwood and Doctor Who to be together in the same room at the same time, but it was infrequent enough that it did call for some celebration. Edgar had sprung for pizza and beer -- the good stuff, not the Craft Services stuff that some of the lower-paid members practically lived on -- and there was a general sense of good-feeling and camaraderie in the common room. Even the junior writers, who were supposed to be pitching ideas for Christmas episodes, looked relaxed. 

"All right," Ellis said, somewhere around everyone's second beer. "Edgar, the children have a pitch for you. I've kept well out of it, but I think they will succeed on their own merits rather than fall on their faces."

Derek cleared his throat. "Should I stand up?"

"Not unless you really desire it," Ellis said, amused.

"Okay." Derek cleared his throat again. "What we want to do is a shot of Chicago, looking Christmasy -- the decorations on Navy Pier and the really ugly stuff they put on the El stations downtown. Ian's walking along from his El stop, and he enters the Hub. It's totally dark."

***

Excerpt from the shooting script for Episode 2x10: The Christmas Invasion  
Story by: Derek Smith and Richard Allen  
Teleplay by: Derek Smith, Anna Jackson, and Richard Allen  
Directed by: Ellis Graveworthy

INT - HUB - MORNING

IAN enters a darkened HUB and pauses, eyes shifting back and forth. It's obviously unusual for the HUB to be completely shut down. 

IAN  
Jack? Owen?

No response. IAN flicks on the lights and discovers a bundle of blankets on the couch. 

IAN  
Jack. If you want a more comfortable bed...

He pulls the blankets back to reveal JACK, flushed and sweating, asleep but restless. IAN touches his forehead, then pulls back, panicked.

IAN  
OWEN! OWEN, WHERE ARE YOU?

***

"Where is he?" Edgar asked, intrigued. 

"He's in hibernation," Anna said. "There's a little bit of bickering as Ian switches on the computers and gets Owen up and running, Owen's talking about being shut down, something like...the equivalent of sleep?"

"There's nothing canonical to contradict it," Derek put in.

"Go ahead."

"We cut to Tommy's phone ringing. He answers -- "

"Ian, what fresh hell is this, morning wake-up calls?" Richard added, doing a decent imitation of Hiro.

***

IAN  
Jack's sick and Owen can't do anything except measure his heat signatures. 

OWEN  
Thanks, Ian. Give him some asprin, it'll bring the fever down.

IAN  
Are you sure?

OWEN  
Of course I'm not sure!

TOMMY OS  
Is that Owen?

IAN  
Be quiet a minute. You're not sure, Owen?

OWEN  
I've never treated an immortal for the flu before!

***

"Blah blah blah, cut to credits." Anna spread her hands on the table. "We come back to Jack obviously feeling better but not at full strength. Tommy's doing his best to doctor him up while Tosh and Gwen check the CCTV for anything that might have gotten into the Hub at night. They can't find anything but they do find a ship bound for Earth and some really weird energy readings."

"So, they figure out that the ship's going to arrive on Christmas day, and Ian volunteers to take Jack home while the rest of them start preparing for the arrival of whatever ship this is," Richard said. 

Ellis glanced at Edgar, who was listening with a tilt of his head -- a good sign, an indicator that he was listening critically but also slowly being pulled into the story. 

***

INT - IAN'S APARTMENT - DAY

IAN'S APARTMENT is small but clean, with large windows looking out on the street below. He manhandles JACK through the door and leans him against the counter while he sets down his things and puts a pot of coffee on. Snow is falling outside. 

JACK  
I don't get sick.

IAN  
Well, you are.

JACK  
No, I mean, I don't get sick. 

IAN  
Owen said -- 

JACK  
Owen said I haven't been sick in five years, I'm telling you I haven't been sick in a hundred and fifty. I don't get sick.

IAN comes around and pulls JACK upright. He begins undressing him.

IAN  
First time for everything.

JACK  
Is it wrong that I'm enjoying this?

IAN looks at him.

IAN  
The undressing, or being sick?

JACK  
Both, but I meant being sick. 

IAN leans him against the counter again and begins taking off his shoes.

JACK  
Jesus, it's cold in here.

IAN  
That's the fever. It's fine.   
[as he pulls his socks off]  
Well, it can be nice, being sick, I guess. It's an excuse not to have to do anything. License to be lazy.

JACK  
I don't like being lazy.

IAN  
I'd gathered something to that effect.

***

"So, he gets him into bed, and Jack very seriously tells him that this isn't the flu, it's time-sickness," Derek said.

"Oh, please, can we have a puking scene?" Edgar said. 

"Puking might be good," Derek looked at the others for confirmation.

"I'm okay with puking," Anna agreed. 

"The point is, we need to get across that the reason he's sick is that he's linked into...time as a whole," Richard said. "And there's some physical object that's slipped out of the timestream and is wreaking havoc. We can have Owen tracking strange weather patterns, maybe even strange economic patterns. Christmas craziness, you know?"

"We thought about having a montage," Derek said. "Sort of intercutting Ian looking after Jack and Jack being totally miserable with the others researching this ship that's coming. The ship itself gives off a lot of light, it's sort of crackling with energy, so people are starting to notice a new star."

"The Sycorax," Anna added. "That's what we're calling them."

"What do they want from Earth?" Edgar asked.

"Power. The slip in the timestream is centered in Chicago and it's putting out power, like the rift does. There are other ships too."

"But the Sycorax are really worrying because they've started scanning the city, and the scans tend to...destroy things."

"So Torchwood's fighting a losing battle?" Edgar said. 

"And then," Anna leaned forward and grinned at Edgar. "The Doctor shows up."

***

EXT - DALEY PLAZA - DAY

The TARDIS appears on the plaza, in the shadow of the PICASSO SCULPTURE, fading in and out before finally solidifying. The door bursts open and the DOCTOR, LETHBRIDGE, and ROSE stumble out, laughing. 

There is a series of clicking noises.

All three stop dead. Swing around to see TOSH, TOMMY, and GWEN holding guns on the trio. 

GWEN  
Stay right where you are.

LETHBRIDGE  
Oh, for crying out loud.

TOSH  
On your knees. Hands on your heads.

LETHBRIDGE and ROSE grudgingly obey. The DOCTOR just stares at them.

DOCTOR  
You can't be serious. 

TOMMY  
We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Doctor.

The DOCTOR puts his hands on his hips. All three Torchwood agents aim at him. 

DOCTOR  
I am not kneeling so you three can feel like you're in control of the situation. You don't need to shoot us, we came looking for you and your Captain.

TOSH  
Why are you looking for the Captain?

DOCTOR   
That's between me and him.   
[beat; sardonic]  
We come in peace, Earthling. Take me to your leader. 

***

"So they lock Lethbridge and Rose up in the cells and take the Doctor off to see Jack," Derek continued. 

***

INT - HUB CELLS 

LETHBRIDGE and ROSE are in two adjoining cells, each sitting on one side of their shared wall. 

LETHBRIDGE  
It's okay. The Doctor will get us out.

ROSE  
The Doctor's at the mercy of these freaks.

OWEN  
That's hardly nice.

Both start.

LETHBRIDGE  
Who're you?   
[turns to locate loudspeakers]  
Where are you?

OWEN  
Doctor Owen Harper. You're Colonel Gordon Lethbridge, USPAT, and that's Rose Tyler. Current status: Lethbridge, classified; Tyler, missing, presumed kidnapped.

LETHBRIDGE  
Oh, you've got all the answers, huh?

OWEN  
Yes, actually. I do.

LETHBRIDGE  
Why don't you come down and talk to us in person?

ROSE  
Try not to piss him off, Colonel.

OWEN  
I would if I could. But I can't. 

LETHBRIDGE  
Oh yeah?

OWEN  
Yes. I don't have a body.

ROSE  
What?

OWEN  
I am a human personality uploaded to the Hub supercomputer via alien technology. Technically I do have a body, but it's currently in cryogenic storage. I can access more data in a day than you could in an entire lifetime. I have emotions, higher reasoning capabilities, and an attitude. In short, I'm the perfect AI. 

LETHBRIDGE  
Bull.

A monitor in LETHBRIDGE's cell comes on. OWEN's speech appears as scrolling text on the monitor.

OWEN  
Not so much. I'd be nice to me if I were you. I control the environmental programming for your area. I can make things very uncomfortable for the two of you.

ROSE  
I told you not to piss him off!

***

"Why is the Doctor there?" Edgar asked, leaning forward raptly. 

"That's what the audience is going to be asking," Ellis said. Edgar shot him a look. "No, honestly. Go on, Anna."

"They get the Doctor to Ian's apartment -- it'll be fun having everyone look around, I think it's the first time any of them have seen his place," Anna said. "The Doctor goes to see Jack in the bedroom, it'll be kind of touching, you know -- _Captain, what's happened to you?_ "

"Meanwhile, Lethbridge is trying to give his PDA away again," Richard said.

***

INT - CELLS 

LETHBRIDGE  
[whispering]  
Owen? Are you there? Can you hear me?

OWEN  
[over the loudspeakers in LETHBRIDGE's cell only; infinitely weary:]  
I'm always here. And I hear everything in the Hub. 

LETHBRIDGE  
Can Rose hear you?

OWEN  
She's asleep. 

LETHBRIDGE  
You can tell?

OWEN  
Yes.

LETHBRIDGE  
Listen. I know Torchwood. You work with USPAT. I have information on the Doctor I need to get to USPAT headquarters. If I upload it to you, can you send it to them?

OWEN  
I'm not letting you upload anything to me. 

LETHBRIDGE  
I don't suppose I could confound you into a perpetual loop with a logic problem.

OWEN  
No, and I saw that episode of Star Trek, so don't try it.

LETHBRIDGE  
Worth a shot.

***

"The Doctor has a pistol, which surprises everyone, but it's obviously an antique," Anna said.

"The Sycorax are still attacking, by the way, so Torchwood's freaking out a little."

"But he gives the pistol to Jack, and all of a sudden, tons of flashbacks," Richard said smugly. "Jumbled images, Jack in a long victorian coat, people running through dark streets, that kind of thing. Which you won't get until the Doctor Who episode afterward."

"Oh, a double header -- that's good," Edgar said. "We're already doing a crossover for sweeps, but -- this could work."

"We'll put in some scene where the Doctor says _We must stop meeting like this_ ," Ellis suggested. 

"From there it's pretty much your standard action sequence," Anna explained. "The Sycorax start actually appearing in Chicago, trying to find Jack, but now that he's got the pistol the timestream is righting itself and he's recovering. If they can get to the Hub there's an energy cannon they can fire at the Sycorax ship to destroy it."

"Except, of course, that one of them has gotten into the Hub," Richard said.

"How'd he get past Owen?" Edgar asked. 

"Futuristic over-ride, locked him into a handful of systems."

"Uh-huh. So Owen's going crazy?"

"That's the beauty of it. The Sycorax guy is going to need backup, he knows this, so he starts looking for bodies to reanimate, because they deal in energy," Richard said.

Edgar got a gleam in his eye.

"That's how we get Owen back," he said. "Your Sycorax reanimates Owen and once the Sycorax are defeated by our plucky heroes they can zap Owen back out of the Hub and into his newly reanimated body."

"Fully charged and ready for use," Ellis smiled. "Told you they'd do well. Lethbridge and Rose get away and they hightail it out with the Doctor before anyone can catch him."

"And the stuff we don't know, that's all explained in the Who episode?" Edgar asked. 

"Yeah, most of it. A few mysteries, just for kicks," Richard said. 

"Well, let's have another beer, then you can lay that one on me."

***

DOCTOR WHO 1x10: THE UNQUIET DEAD   
_Christmas is Rose Tyler's favorite time of year, and the Doctor is determined to show her a proper Victorian Christmas in London. The only problem now is that there's a timeslip forming that the Doctor needs to prevent, Jack Harkness is stalking them, and ghosts are slipping through time to harass and terrify the population. Just your ordinary Christmas for the Doctor, really._

"It's actually really simple," Anna picked at the label of her beer bottle. "The pistol is the center of it all. Time is starting to unspool even before they encounter it, but because Jack's stalking the Doctor in London -- "

" -- where he's doing some undercover international work for Torchwood -- "

" -- he eventually has to team up with them to kill some monsters that have fallen through. He gives the Doctor his pistol and..."

"Time explodes," Edgar said. "Brilliant. So they have to take the pistol back to him to set time right."

"Magic," Ellis smiled. "Pure poetry."

"It'll knock 'em on their asses," Edgar agreed. He looked at the junior writers, saw them beaming but anxious. "Well, okay. Get on it. Work up the scripts amongst yourselves, have Ellis check them over when they're done for continuity. You'll get name billing on the episodes."

He stood up. "Good storytelling, but I'm tired. You three -- celebrate, finish up this beer if you can. I'm going to bed."

"Merry Christmas, Edgar," Ellis said, though Christmas was still months away. Edgar stopped in the door and winked at the kids.

"Merry Christmas. Now get to work."

***

TORCHWOOD 2x11: KISS KISS   
_Torchwood has begun to receive strange messages from the past, from a man named John Hart that Jack seems to be all too familiar with. Hart claims he can't reach them in the 21st century and he doesn't know why. Eventually they figure out a way to communicate -- after receiving a video-recorded letter, they leave a letter of their own in a safety-deposit box, which John Hart recovers in the future and then replies to by jumping back into the past. All this transit, however, might kill John Hart before he can provide the help Jack so desperately craves -- and with Owen still recovering from his time in the Hub, there's only so much they can do._

When Jack met them on the Plaza that morning, he was out of his usual uniform; instead he was standing with his hands shoved in the pockets of a sober brown pinstripe suit, and he was wearing a _tie_. 

Tosh saw him first, as she and Ian dawdled their way towards the barricaded front facade of the old Torchwood El station. She nudged Ian.

"We should meet the mayor more often," she said. 

"He cleans up well," Ian agreed. 

"You know," Tosh said, "Don't take this the wrong way, but once in a while I look at Jack..."

"Hm?" Ian sipped his coffee, eyebrows raising to indicate she should continue. 

"And he's so tall. I just kind of want to climb him."

She'd expected him to at least choke on his coffee, but he just finished swallowing, smiled at her, and said, "Bring rope."

Tosh burst out laughing as they reached Jack, who looked like he'd like to be told what the joke was but was far too cool ever to ask. 

"Morning," he said, adjusting his tie. 

"You look nice," Tosh said sincerely.

"I dress for the mayor," Jack replied. "It's an old tradition. Become sort of a joke really, over the years." His eyes clouded a little. "I dressed for his dad, too."

"Jesus Christ, _get out of my way_ , cripple coming through," someone said, and they all turned to see Owen fighting his way down the sidewalk in a wheelchair, occasionally slamming one of the footrests into the leg of any passing pedestrians who didn't clear the way fast enough. He was hampered somewhat by the thin crust of snow still on the ground.

"Owen," Ian said impassively, as he approached. Ian had a way of making a poker face which indicated, without a twitch, that he was expending all his energy on not smiling vengefully. 

"This is your fault," Owen said, skewing the chair to a stop and pointing at him. "You fried my goddamn nervous system."

"Admit it, Owen, you like the attention," Tosh replied. "You wouldn't keep shouting about it if you didn't."

"You know what I don't like? Being forced to relearn how to use my legs."

"Could be worse," Jack said. "Could have been permanent."

Ian's face said that suddenly Owen's wheelchair wasn't as funny as it had been a moment ago. 

"Well, this is nice and gothic," said a new voice, and Gwen appeared, bundled in a huge waterproof parka. "It's like a painting called Misery on Daley Plaza. Where's Tommy?"

"Meeting us there," Tosh said. "He was running late."

Jack turned from the Torchwood station facade to gaze up at the City Hall building across the plaza. "Shall we?" he said, offering Gwen his arm. 

When they reached the Mayor's office, Ian broke off from the rest of the group to locate the kitchen, and by the time they were invited into the inner sanctum he had a tray of hot drinks prepared. He handed them around while the mayor shook Jack's hand and inquired after Owen's health. 

"I realise it's unusual to request the presence of the entire staff," he said, as a preamble, leaning against his desk rather than sitting behind it. "But I'd like a consultation on an...interesting piece of video footage we received two weeks ago."

He flicked on a television in the corner of the room; it was freeze-frame paused on an image of a newspaper. Daley held up an identical newspaper.

"This morning's paper," he said.

"And you got the tape two weeks ago?" Jack asked. 

"It looks old," Tommy said. "Yellowing around the edges, faded newsprint."

"Is that all there is?" Jack asked.

"No," Daley said, and hit the play button. 

The paper stayed in front of the camera for another few seconds before being tossed aside. A man stepped into the frame -- mid-thirties probably, with sharp high cheekbones and dark hair. Tosh could see Jack's back stiffen.

"This is Captain John Hart," the man said, his accent (not dissimilar to Jack's) sharpening the consonants. "This video recording is an attempt to reach a companion of mine. As you can see from the newspaper, which will become accurate two weeks after you receive this recording, I am speaking to you from the future."

"Jack?" Tosh asked softly. Jack shushed her, still staring hungrily at the screen.

"I am an agent of the Tri-System Time Agency, New London branch. My companion is a former Time Agent who may go by the designation of Captain. His last known alias was John Tiernan and my intel informs me that he is likely located in the Chicago area during this time period. Fortunate for me," the man, Captain Hart, added with a grin. "Because my intel also tells me that the Torchwood Institute's Chicago branch is still operational. I am speaking to you in the hopes that you will be able to contact the Torchwood Institute and pass this message on to them. I believe they may have the best chance of locating him."

He held up his arm and tapped a small mechanism inside a leather strap on his arm. Jack's hand darted to his own, secured around his left wrist. A small holographic projection appeared from Captain Hart's strap. 

"This is Captain John Tiernan. Good luck. You'll find information on how to contact me contained with this recording."

Daley paused the footage again. The hologram was a man's face; hair slightly longer, but still unmistakeably Jack Harkness. 

"My father trusted you implicitly," Daley said slowly, switching off the TV and ejecting the DVD, placing it in a black plastic case. "And I don't have any reason not to, Captain Harkness. As far as I'm concerned, the tape was turned over to Torchwood unwatched."

He held the case out to Jack, who took it with fingers that shook just slightly.

"Good luck making contact," the mayor added. "My secretary will show you out."

***

Transcript from the DVD Extras, Torchwood, Season Two: Interview With An Ex-Vampire.

James Marsters: It was a ton of fun doing the John Hart recordings -- it's hard because you're not talking to someone you can see, you're just talking to the camera, but that can be good too. When you get the right moment, when you have a character turn and look right at you through the TV screen, that's great stuff. And it's interesting to see because -- the further along he goes in the first episode, the sicker he gets while he tries to keep jumping back and forth over this barrier that the Rift has made around Jack Harkness. Which for me was just a lot of time in the makeup chair. But now you can string all the John Hart recordings together and see him slowly getting paler, bigger rings under his eyes. Yeah, I liked that. It was cool to actually get my own scenes in the second episode, but the recordings are a bigger kick to watch. 

***

TORCHWOOD 2x12: BANG BANG   
_John Hart has finally managed to locate Jack Harkness, but in throwing the Rift open last year the Torchwood gang created a temporal bubble that John's time-travel device isn't strong enough to get through. Jack will do anything to make contact again, but Ian and Tosh are suspicious that John has only come to take their Captain away from them. When Tommy formulates a way to bring John Hart inside the barrier, Jack must choose between the home he's made on Earth or a galaxy of possibilities._

Edgar was going over artistic sketches with Mia -- Captain John's temporal bubble generator and the 51st Century Flashback scenes -- when Ellis walked into the room, holding a slim hardcover book. He cleared his throat and read aloud.

_My old clock used to tell the time_  
and subdivide diurnity;  
but now it's lost both hands and chime   
and only tells eternity. 

Edgar stilled, one finger extended over the drawing of the Time Agency front desk.

"What's that from?" he asked.

"It's a poem by Piet Hein called Out Of Time," Ellis replied.

"Well, we have to use it," Edgar said, breaking away from the desk and taking the book out of Ellis's hands. 

"Yes, that was rather the thought."

"Can we fit it into episode twelve?"

"I don't know, I'm not certain where to crowbar it in, there." Ellis took a pen out of his pocket as Edgar reached for the working script. 

"It's a little contemplative for the episode, but..."

"Oh well, we could put a quiet scene in, waiting for a letter to arrive."

"If we put him with Ian, we can reference it as part of the decision -- "

" -- to stay, of course."

Mia smiled, quietly rolled up her drawings, and left the room as the two men bent their heads over the script and began paging through it. 

***

Excerpt from the shooting script for Episode 2x12: Bang Bang.  
Story & Teleplay by: Ellis Graveworthy & Edgar van Scyoc

INT - IAN'S APARTMENT - NIGHT

IAN is lying in bed, eyes open, facing the camera. Tight focus on his face. 

JACK OS  
There'll be another letter tomorrow morning. From John.

IAN  
Mmh.

JACK OS  
This time tomorrow he could be here, in our time. 

IAN  
And if he asks you to go back to yours? Will you?

JACK OS  
Why, would you miss me?

IAN  
Yep.

Beat. JACK's head is visible behind IAN's neck. IAN shifts to accomodate the embrace.

JACK  
I left home a long time ago. What was my home. Maybe where I came from doesn't matter so much anymore.

IAN  
I know you get lonely.

JACK  
Going back wouldn't fix that, would it? I've lived too long here. And there wasn't much for me, there. He's said he can't fix me, so. I don't know yet.   
[beat; teasingly, as if to cheer him]   
My old clock used to tell the time / and subdivide diurnity; / but now it's lost both face and chime / and only tells eternity.

IAN  
I'm sorry.

JACK  
Don't be. I've seen the most amazing things, being here. Loved the most amazing people -- people I never would have met if I just stayed where I was. That, I wouldn't change. Not for worlds.

IAN turns his face up and kisses JACK; inbetween kisses:

IAN  
Stay. Stay. Stay. Stay. 

***

"There's just no way to do this," Edgar said, when Ellis picked up on the third ring.

"Have you seen the sun?" Ellis asked, which gave Edgar pause in the rant he was about to work up.

"Huh?"

"If you're calling me I assume it's during daylight hours, because only fools and bastards call me in the middle of the night," Ellis continued. "Especially when the middle of the night is four AM for you."

Edgar glanced at the clock. "I woke you up."

"Yes, Edgar, you woke me up."

Edgar considered matters.

"I wouldn't want to have woken you in vain," he said carefully, and heard an annoyed huff from Ellis.

"All right. What is it that you can't do?"

"Write this in a way that makes sense."

"Which script are you working on?"

"The ending for Bang Bang. There's no way anywhere to indicate that Ian and Tosh are right in thinking that John Hart's collecting Jack to take him back to the Agency for horrible experimentation."

Edgar tapped the fingers of his free hand on the laptop, waiting for Ellis to assemble his sleepy thoughts.

"Well, how concrete should we be? Leave it up to the viewer, pretend it was intentional."

"Yeah, but I want to at least indicate," Edgar complained.

"Fine, well, you have all this baseless suspicion of Hart floating round, in the minds of the team, and you've never really justified that, Edgar. have Ian suggest it or something. Get the team talking about it."

Edgar tilted his head. "That might work. It'll give the baseless suspicion some bite."

"There you are then." He could hear Ellis yawning around the last word. "Do you need me to hold your hand while you work it in?"

"No, I'll make some notes, finish it in the morning." Edgar hesitated. "How's work on the new Who going?"

"Moderately well. Lots of green screen, not really my forte. Apparently the epic underground traffic jam will look quite impressive once the CGI is done. I've spent most of my time doing edits on the three-parter."

"Are you tracking the edits? I want to see what you're thinking."

"You don't want to see what I'm thinking, Edgar, trust me. You only want to see what I'm writing."

"We should do a telepathy episode."

"Next year. Go amuse yourself. I'm going back to bed now," Ellis said.

"Sweet dreams, El."

"Die in a fire, Edgar."

Edgar laughed and hung up. 

***

Excerpt from the shooting script for Episode 2x12: Bang Bang.  
Story & Teleplay by: Ellis Graveworthy & Edgar van Scyoc

INT - HUB

GWEN, TOSH, and IAN are working at one of the computer terminals; in the background, JOHN and JACK are talking.

TOSH  
Well, now that we've seen him in the flesh, what do we think of him?

IAN  
He's short. 

GWEN  
You think he'll go back with Captain Hart?

IAN  
Don't know. Don't think Jack knows. 

GWEN  
Would it be bad if he did? He's not meant to be here, not in this time, not permanently.

IAN looks up at her.

GWEN  
You want him to be happy, don't you?

TOSH  
I don't believe Captain Hart's come here now to take him home and live happily ever after. 

BOTH look at her.

TOSH  
Watch them. Hart won't go within three feet of Jack unless he has to. He wouldn't eat with us, won't take any coffee from you. 

GWEN  
You think he's planning something?

TOSH  
Jack scares the hell out of him. Look, watch.

In the background, JACK claps JOHN on the shoulder; JOHN flinches. JACK appears not to notice.

TOSH  
I think this Agency sent him to get Jack back.

GWEN  
Why would they want Jack back so badly now?

TOSH  
Maybe they wanted him back all along, but until now we didn't have the technology inside of Torchwood to create the second temporal bubble. Not until Tommy and me.

IAN  
There are a lot of reasons an agency dealing in time travel would want to get their hands on an immortal. 

GWEN  
What do we do? You think Jack'll believe us?

IAN   
Not me.  
[They look at him; he tilts his head at JOHN]  
Jack thinks I'm jealous.

TOSH  
Are you?

IAN  
My urge to strangle John Hart with my bare hands has nothing to do with Jack. 

GWEN  
Yeah, that sounds objective.

IAN  
Jack belongs here. HE doesn't. He's an asshole, and he's messing around in time. He's making us mess around in time just so he can -- drag Jack away, or put him on the dissection table. Something.

TOSH  
And he's trying to steal your boyfriend.

IAN  
[quickly] He's not my boyfriend.

GWEN and TOSH look skeptical.

IAN  
We don't -- call it -- it's not that formal. We're not like that. Me and Jack. 

***

DOCTOR WHO 1x11: GRIDLOCK   
_The Doctor's attempts to teach Rose the basics of flying the TARDIS land them in the underbelly of New New York, where the gridlock is so bad that it can take years just to get from one city to the next. The population has become a group of barely-mobile car-campers, living in their futuristic automobiles and trying to get to a promised land where jobs and surface-level houses await. But the Doctor suspects that nobody is left on the surface of New New York, and that something much darker is controlling the news that comes out of the car holo-radios every morning..._

Ellis didn't return to Chicago until after Bang Bang had wrapped, grabbing a week of leisure for himself while Doctor Who was on filming break so the CGI boys could work their magic. He snuck in so quietly that the studio didn't even know to send a car, and he ended up riding the El north to Edgar's shabby, red-brick condo in Lincoln Square. He showed up at a little past seven in the evening, with a bag slung over his shoulder and an ingratiating grin on his face. 

It was pretty deep winter and porch-sitting, their usual summer pastime, had given way to Edgar attempting to prove he could start a log fire and Ellis, of course, mocking his efforts. When they finally managed to get the fire going, Edgar sat back on his heels and cocked an eyebrow at Ellis, who was watching the flames lick around the edge of the kindling. 

"I don't know why you bothered coming down, actually," he said. "Did you know we weren't filming this week either?"

"It's not unreasonable to assume I missed Chicago," Ellis replied. He caught Edgar's dubious expression and smiled. "What, were you hoping I'd say I missed you?"

"Well, it wouldn't hurt," Edgar answered. "By the way, I thought you might like to look over the new -- "

He'd started to trail off when Ellis had leaned forward, but he didn't stop until Ellis was kissing him. 

Well.

That was new.

Ellis leaned back. "I missed you."

"Uh," Edgar said.

"I had a good speech all done up about how, having finished work on a story where people who spend their whole lives in holding patterns break free and death is preferable to being locked up in a giant glass tank, I thought perhaps my subconscious was trying to tell me something, but, ah. Carpe diem," Ellis said, not quite meeting Edgar's eyes. "And of course I've no idea if you -- that is to say I know there have been women and men in your past -- "

Edgar cupped his hand over Ellis's mouth to stop him from continuing.

"I missed you too," he said. Ellis blinked once, slowly. 

He took his hand away.

"Edgar, would you have dinner with me tomorrow night?" Ellis asked. Edgar glanced at the fire. He had dinner with Ellis all the time, they ate nearly every meal together when they were in the same zipcode, but he suspected Ellis was being discreet and he'd long known Ellis was easier in the symbolism of the act than he was in the speech of it. Which was weird, for a writer, but Ellis was weird. 

And smart, and interesting, and always willing to go along with Edgar's insanity, and watching him carefully for a sign that this was okay, that they weren't going to screw up, that he hadn't already screwed up. 

"Dinner. Yes," Edgar said.

"Grand," Ellis replied, and smiled. 

***

DOCTOR WHO 1x12: SILENCE IN THE LIBRARY   
_The great library of the planet Alexandria has one of the most comprehensive collections of published books anywhere in the universe, stored in huge rooms which, like the TARDIS, are bigger on the inside. Past masters of the art of research, the librarians are famed across the galaxies for their knowledge -- but they have fallen mysteriously silent, and when the Doctor and his companions arrive on Alexandria they find the library deserted. Where have the librarians gone, and why are books suddenly disappearing?_

From the Doctor Who Quotes File, a subdivision of The Unofficial Torchwood Fansite:

Doctor: Inside the library, the rooms could span continents. Nobody could walk from one end of the library to the other in a day, a week, a month...you can only access certain sections at certain times of day -- it goes in a ring, see? So only the central entry point is always in light. Staff will fetch books from the dark stacks, using the transporters, but sections open as others close, locks unfastening, doors closing behind you. With enough speed you could chase darkness around the ring. But see here...there came a point where the dark stacks didn't open, and the day-side stacks closed, and you can only run with daylight for so long.  
Rose: What happened when they hit the locked doors, and the lights went out?  
Doctor: What do you think, Rose?

Lethbridge: All this programming, all these thousands of years to get a bug or a little snare...code is fragile. A bracket where there should be a caret, a zero where a one should be...  
Rose: And the artificial intelligence goes insane.   
Lethbridge: Pull out the right brick and the whole building falls down.  
Rose: So what do we do?  
Lethbridge: I think it needs a reboot.  
Doctor: What, jiggle the cord?  
Lethbridge: Always worked for me in the past.  
Doctor: Me too, come to think of it. 

***

From Who's Talking, the official Doctor Who website:

**The Alexandria Library Screensaver**  
Projects onto the screen the map of the Alexandria Library used in the Doctor Who episode "Silence in the Library". The screensaver can be set to loop repeatedly or on a user-designated count-down. 

Related Links: Enter to win an original sketch of the Alexandria Library, signed by Artistic Director Mia Lee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't want to influence anyone or anything, but I think you will all be amused by the fact that I ran the manip of Lethbridge in a descent suit past Dove to see if it was decent. She replied that the only problem she had with it was the pose, which makes him look "like he just jerked off a Dalek."
> 
> Bet like 2/3 of you just scrolled back up to see for yourselves, huh.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Torchwood and Doctor Who team up for a three-week crossover series with Dalek invasions, long-lost family, space battles, and plenty of Doctor Who mythology. Meanwhile, Edgar and Ellis attempt to maintain some semblance of a personal life.

**SPECIAL DOCTOR WHO CROSSOVER TRILOGY**  
Starting tonight at 8/7 Central!

_Torchwood and Doctor Who begin a three-week miniseries run featuring two hours of sci-fi action every Saturday night. The Doctor and Torchwood must work in tandem when the Doctor's most ancient enemy, the Dalek race, is summoned to Earth by an alien artifact. Secrets will be revealed, soldiers will be forged in the crucible of an international battle for survival, and one man will give his life to protect the planet from the Hungry Storm. How did the Daleks escape the battle of Arcadia -- and what is the mystery behind the Doctor's name?_

***

"It's done," Ellis said, sitting back in his chair and sighing. "Post-production is in the can, the publicity machine is gearing up, and I think frankly I've earned a nice holiday somewhere after penning a six-hour science-fiction trilogy."

Edgar looked up across the desk and smiled. "But you won't take one, huh."

"Not until the season's over. But it's nice to have crossed a milestone."

"You loved every minute of it. You live for the epic."

Ellis nodded, but he rubbed the bridge of his nose exhaustedly, too. "I do. With all the expended energy that entails. I suspect I'm getting too old for the epic, however."

"That's crap. You're not old, and this is the showpiece of the franchise -- they'll be talking about the miniseries for years. We're going to kill during sweeps."

"Yes, perhaps so."

Edgar got up and circled the desk, resting his hands on Ellis's shoulders from behind. "When do you fly out for Vancouver?"

"Three days," Ellis mumbled.

"And just a little bit of this tiredness is -- "

" -- that I'm going to miss you, yes, fine, make me say it."

"Always," Edgar ran his thumbs up the nape of Ellis's neck. "Let's go out and celebrate. Somewhere quiet, you and me, bottle of wine, fortifying steaks."

"You're a terrible romantic."

"Indulge me."

"What else do I ever do?"

Edgar leaned forward, resting his chin on the crown of Ellis's head. "This will be what, our third date?"

"Sort of pathetic when you think about it."

"Well, long-distance relationships are hard. My point, distractible one, is that I have a very relaxed policy regarding putting out after the third date."

Ellis leaned back and looked up at him, but it was amusement and not arousal in his eyes. "Is that so?"

"That's so."

"And you're saying, in your own indirect way, that if I take you out for drinks and dinner I might get lucky afterwards?"

Edgar grinned and nodded, one hand sliding down Ellis's bicep. 

"I'm not certain how much luckier I could get, really," Ellis murmured, closing his eyes and resting his head back against Edgar's shoulder. Edgar waited patiently, letting him bask for a moment.

"All right," Ellis said. "We'll go out. _But_ , we have to be back by seven. There's a show on the television I want to watch. I hear they're doing a _miniserial!_ "

Edgar laughed. "Fair enough. Come on."

***

TRILOGY PART ONE: FATHERS AND SONS   
_Lieutenant Ross Jenkins, USPAT soldier and friend of Torchwood, has discovered something mysterious on a routine recon drill. Mistrustful of his superiors' intentions towards the artifact, he brings it to Torchwood for further study. Unfortunately, someone else wants the artifact: the Doctor, summoned back to 21st century Earth by its powerful pull. That's not the only surprise in store, however -- especially for Lieutenant Jenkins and the Doctor's companion Gordon Lethbridge._

"Jack, since it's quiet, can I go a bit early?"

Jack looked up from the budget report he was working on and grinned. "What, got a hot date?"

"Something like that," Tosh said, matching his grin.

"You have a date?" Tommy asked. 

"Who's got a date?" Owen called from below, sitting on the ground and tinkering with one of his chair's wheels. He pushed himself up, walked a few unsteady steps, and dropped back into it. 

"Tosh," Tommy answered. "You didn't tell me."

"I don't tell you everything."

"Oh my god," Gwen said. "Is it Ross the Hot USPAT Guy?"

"Ross the Hot USPAT Guy," Tosh confirmed. "He asked me out."

"Well, who am I to stand in the way of interdepartmental relations?" Jack asked, leaning back. "Go on."

"I want a report tomorrow!" Gwen called, as Tosh gathered her bags and almost skipped out the rolldoor. 

As he passed, Ian caught Owen's eye and gave him a lopsided smile; Owen glanced down at his hands in his lap, scowled, and wheeled off.

***

"What about you?" Tosh asked, twisting her fork in her salad. She glanced up at Ross, who looked remarkably normal out of USPAT gear. He took a sip of his beer. "I don't know anything about you, and you've pretty much had my whole history."

"It's nice to be able to tell someone, isn't it?" he said. "Someone you don't have to skimp on the details with."

"Yeah. Usually I tell people I work for the city, and they get this look."

Ross laughed. "Try telling them you're a Marine. They either start to lecture me about world peace or get dewey-eyed and ask me when I'm shipping out."

"Come on, though, you have to have a story. I told you mine."

He shrugged. "Not really. Only child, single mother -- grew up in Wales, near her family, but she got a job at U Chicago when I was a teenager and moved me out here. Got my citizenship when she did."

"And your dad? If I can ask..."

"Dad was a USPAT man stationed in London, at least Mum thinks so. They had a fling, he vanished...she didn't want me to go into USPAT, but I...wanted to see, I guess. What the big deal was. And maybe I thought I'd find my dad."

"Sad," Tosh said, frowning.

"It sounds like it, but I have a lot of fun. We get to see some pretty interesting stuff. And meet cool people," he added, catching her eye. "In fact..." he reached into the messenger bag slung on the back of the chair and took out a padded envelope. "I was going to use this as an excuse if the date ended up being awkward, but I think we're doing all right, don't you?"

"I think so," she said. "What is it?"

"It was recovered from a crash site a few miles outside of Chicago. We told the locals it was a downed light aircraft. It doesn't match the rest of the material and...I like working in USPAT but that doesn't mean I trust them. I pocketed it, thought I'd pass it on to you. USPAT takes the view that if you can't use it to blow things up, it's probably worthless."

Tosh peered into the envelope. Inside was a strange, thin metal device, about the diameter and shape of a bread plate. 

"Have a look at it later -- it's made up of interlocking disks, you can move them around. Probably just someone's idea of a calculator," he said, which was when Tosh's phone rang.

"Captain Harkness," she said. "I need to -- "

He wasn't paying attention, though; he was holding up a pager and studying it.

"Jack, what's going on?" Tosh asked, flipping the phone open.

"Incoming," Jack said. "Huge energy spike on East Illinois near the NBC tower. Get back here."

"I'll meet you there, it's across the street. Have Ian send me the location," she said, then hesitated as Ross waved to get her attention. "Hang on, Jack."

"USPAT callout, all hands," Ross said. "Across the street."

"Jack, USPAT's on alert as well," she said. 

"Ross the Hot USPAT Guy," Jack sighed. "All right, get there, get readings, liaise with USPAT. Sorry about your date."

Tosh grinned at Ross, who was already leaving money on the table for the meal. "Don't be. This is about to get fun."

They hurried out of the restaurant and followed the GPS coordinates Ian transmitted, ending up on Pioneer Plaza just south of the Tribune building, the NBC tower behind them. The plaza was deserted, but there was a strange roaring noise; Ross produced a gun, also from the messenger bag, and offered her a second.

"You always pack heat on dates?" she asked.

"Came from work," he replied. 

There was movement to their left, and when they turned something was blinking in and out of existence: a large blue box, struggling to cohere. The squeal of tires behind them heralded the arrive of the Torchwood SUV, careening across the plaza where cars weren't really meant to go. 

"It's all right!" she called, as doors began to slam open. "I think it's the Doctor!" 

"How is that in any way a definition of 'all right'?" Jack shouted over the roar of the TARDIS engines. "He never shows up here unless there's trouble!" 

There was sudden silence, and the police box loomed before them, dark and forbidding. The door burst open and the Doctor emerged, blaster in hand, aimed unerringly at Tosh and Ross, the two closest targets. Ross, automatically, raised his gun as well. 

Then the Doctor sighed, holstered his blaster, and rolled his eyes.

"Rose, Colonel, come on out," he called, stepping away from the door. "It's just the welcome wagon."

Rose emerged first, followed by the Colonel, neither looking all that different from the last time Tosh had seen them. Ross, however, saw the stripes on Lethbridge's shoulder and snapped to attention.

"Who's your new boy?" the Doctor asked Jack. "He doesn't look too bright."

"He's not one of ours. You ruined his date," Jack replied. "You can't send an email when you're going to be in town? The ship sets off all our alerts and then we end up out here, pretending like we weren't getting ready for an invasion. It gets a bit tiresome, you know."

"Listen, I don't always -- hang on," the Doctor said, head snapping back around to Ross. He stepped forward, looking almost like a dog scenting the air. "If he's not Torchwood, who is he?"

"USPAT man. The rest'll be here soon," Jack said dismissively. "Come on back to the -- "

"Shut up," the Doctor said, holding up a hand. "There's something wrong."

Ross stared resolutely ahead.

"At ease," the Doctor tried. Ross didn't twitch. The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Colonel?"

"At ease, Lieutenant," Lethbridge said, grinning. "We're both off-duty, kid. Relax."

"I hate to be pushy, but USPAT's going to show up at any moment and it's much easier on paperwork if you're not here when they arrive," Jack announced, as Ross stood to parade rest. "If you don't mind, Lieutenant Hot Ross."

"Huh?" Ross asked.

"Lieutenant Jenkins."

"I'm the Doctor," the Doctor said, offering Ross his hand with an expectant air. 

"Doctor of what?" Ross asked, shaking it. The Doctor beamed. 

"Oh, I'm going to like you," he said.

"Lieutenant? Doctor?" Jack said impatiently. "Is there going to be a problem, Jenkins?"

"No -- I think we can hand this one off. I'll handle them when they get here, tell them it was you guys messing around. Go on," Ross said, and pressed the envelope into Tosh's hands again. "Call me? Rain check?"

"Yeah," Tosh said, beaming, and then had to be tugged into the SUV by Jack, who loaded her in next to Rose and Gwen, leaving Lethbridge, Tommy, and Ian to share the cage while the Doctor took place of pride in the shotgun seat. 

"He seems nice," Gwen said to Tosh, over the top of Rose's head. "Did you have a good dinner?"

"Sorry about interrupting -- business first," the Doctor said over his shoulder. "Maybe you guys can help me find what I'm looking for."

"As if we knew what we were looking for," Rose retorted.

"I know in a general sense! Small and evil, gives off lots of energy, somewhere nearby."

"Well, gee, that does narrow it down," Tommy called. 

"We'll catch up later," Gwen assured Tosh, who sighed.

***

Excerpt from the shooting script for: Fathers And Sons  
Story & Teleplay by: Ellis Graveworthy  
Directed by: Edgar van Scyoc

INT - HUB LABORATORY 

The DOCTOR has Tosh's mechanism hooked up to a series of wires, some of which look as though they've been tied in decorative knots. He is on eye-level with it, studying it carefully and making a series of marks on the surface. Focus shift to background; JACK is standing in the doorway, arms crossed.

JACK  
Need anything?

DOCTOR  
More than you could possibly know. 

JACK  
I want to help if I can. We do. Torchwood. We're on the same side, you and us. 

DOCTOR  
You don't know how Torchwood was founded, do you? 

JACK  
[entering the room and closing the door; throughout the scene he circles closer to the DOCTOR]  
Tell me, then.

DOCTOR  
I was a kid when I came to Earth for the first time. I was just...kicking around the universe. Seeing the sights. I did a stupid thing; interfered with the course of history. Nothing that wouldn't have happened anyway, but -- I didn't hear time as clearly as I do now. One offhand remark -- don't cross the river there, General Washington, cross here -- and suddenly you're wanted man number one. I don't know if they think I was a witch or something they wanted to take apart and study. Torchwood was founded as a branch of a masonic order, dedicated to stalking, trapping, and murdering me.

JACK  
Well. I won't deny a bit of stalking. But I thought you could fix me.

DOCTOR  
[ignoring him]  
But of course Torchwood got distracted by all the shiny things that they scavenged as they fell out of the sky, and they needed someone with a little more pep and vigor. Enter USPAT. It's flattering to have spawned two entire militias with the sole purpose of apprehending me, but you'll forgive me if I treat you as my potential jailer. 

JACK  
We aren't like that. We've changed. I changed us.

DOCTOR   
Good for you.

The DOCTOR looks up; JACK is looming directly over him, very close.

JACK  
We're allies, Doctor. We both want to protect Earth. I know why I do, I live here. Why do you?

DOCTOR  
I have a soft spot for creatures that can't look after themselves.

JACK  
Most people just get kittens.

DOCTOR  
You know how important humanity is. Spreading out across known space, innovating, shaping, attacking, defying. Murdering. Rescuing. 

JACK  
Well, I was hoping that you'd say just a little of it had to do with me.

DOCTOR  
You can't die. You don't need my protecting.

JACK  
[suggestive]  
What if I wanted it?

DOCTOR  
Then I'd need protection from Mr. Leone. 

JACK  
We have a very unique relationship.

DOCTOR  
They all say that. 

INT - HUB - JACK'S OFFICE

IAN  
I told you sex wouldn't work.

JACK  
Fun to try though.

IAN  
Out of curiosity, what would you have done if he'd taken you up on the offer?

JACK  
He's the last of his race, Ian. You only live once.

IAN  
That seems to be an excuse I could use more readily than you.

JACK  
Yeah, I should work on my lines. Can you honestly say if you had a chance with him you'd say no?

IAN  
[eyeing the DOCTOR; perhaps more enthusiastically than necessary]  
Good point.

Jack  
Hey!

IAN  
[smirks]  
Turnabout, Jack.

***

"He's watching me," Ross said, head bent over the papers Gwen had just given him. "Do you know why the Doctor keeps watching me?"

"He's pretty much as mysterious to us as he is to you," Gwen answered. "You could ask him. Guy like that, might even get a straight answer."

"He said there was something wrong about me. You think he was just trying to freak me out?" 

"I have excellent hearing," the Doctor said loudly, his voice echoing up the high dome of the Hub. "And I never do anything just to frighten someone."

Ross looked over and found the Doctor watching him; Rose and Tosh were watching the Doctor. There was a flicker of movement from the upstairs conference room where the Colonel and Jack were contacting USPAT. 

"Come down here, if you want to know," the Doctor invited, looking tired. "The world may end tomorrow."

"If there's a Dalek fleet left," Rose said. "And if we can't stop them."

"We can't, not with what we have," the Doctor said. 

"Doctor," Tosh said quietly, tilting her head at Ross as he approached.

"Sure," the Doctor said, seeming to snap out of his pensive mood immediately. "It's all right, I don't bite. Come here."

He stood Ross in a patch of light streaming in from the roof and rested his hands on his shoulders, fingers flexing slightly. Little crackles of blue light licked across his hands and then disappeared. 

"There's something not exactly right about you, like a sound on the edge of hearing, a blurred spot in vision," the Doctor said thoughtfully, more to himself than to Ross. "Almost as if you've been loosed from time, just a little."

"I have good reflexes," Ross offered.

"I don't doubt it. Are your parents still living?" the Doctor asked, and Ross blinked. "It's an easy question. Were you adopted?"

"My mother died last year. My father was a soldier, never stayed anywhere very long."

"A soldier? Is that what she told you?"

"She didn't _lie_ ," Ross said stiffly.

"No, I'm certain she didn't. You won't know this but in polite society it's considerate to ask -- may I look at your DNA?"

"Like, in a test tube?"

"Like, in your body," the Doctor answered, lips twitching into a scornful smile. 

"Will it hurt?"

"No."

Ross nodded once, sharply. The Doctor closed his eyes and his brow furrowed. 

"Yes, there it is...a certain temporal radiation affecting your cells...almost as if you were -- " 

The Doctor's speech cut off sharply as he jerked back, electricity blowing him into a nearby railing and sending Ross to his knees momentarily. When he stood, his coat was smoking. 

"God -- dammit -- LETHBRIDGE!" the Doctor yelled before turning to Ross. "Your mother concieved you in London, didn't she?"

"Yes -- "

"Your father was a USPAT man?"

"We thought -- that is, Mum thought -- maybe, probably."

"What's going on?" Lethbridge called down, leaning on the rail. "Jesus, did you try to blow up the lieutenant?"

"I told you," the Doctor said, striding about to the stairwell. "Lethbridge, what did I _tell you_ about meddling in time?"

"Do as you say, not as you do?" Lethbridge answered. 

"That you didn't know what you were doing! You -- you fornicatory ape!"

"Hey, okay, there's no need for name calling."

"There is every need for name-calling!" the Doctor said. "For a start! Gordon Lethbridge, father! Ross Jenkins, son! You fathered a son? It defies belief, your idiocy, and yet there it is."

Ross was staring upwards at Lethbridge, his face a mixture of confusion and anticipation. 

"Lieutenant Jenkins," Lethbridge said, gripping the railing tightly. "Your mom was Liz Jenkins?"

Ross didn't answer; just kept staring. 

Tommy leaned over to Rose. "Better than a soap opera, huh?"

"You, be quiet," the Doctor ordered. "Lethbridge? Do you have anything to say?"

Lethbridge came down the stairs slowly, pushing past the Doctor, who squawked with indignance.

"You got my hair," he said thoughtfully. "And your mother's eyes."

"And he got your atypical detemporalised genetic code!" the Doctor called. 

"This gonna be a problem, Lieutenant?" Lethbridge said, ignoring the Doctor.

"No. Sir," Ross answered. 

"We got an invasion on its way, maybe. We'll sort this out when it's over."

"It's not like I need a babysitter if you want to go out on Friday nights, sir," Ross said, as Lethbridge turned to walk away.

"Painfully aware of that, Lieutenant, thank you," Lethbridge retorted.

"Well, that was awkward," Ian murmured, as Ross went back to the computer monitors and Lethbridge stalked up to the conference room again.

"Awkward is running into a girl you slept with and forgetting her name," Owen said from the medical bay. "That was a barely-averted armageddon."

***

TRILOGY PART TWO: THE BATTLE OF CHICAGO   
_With the arrival of the Daleks at the end of part one, the Torchwood team and the Doctor and his companions were preparing to fight. Chicago has declared a state of emergency, but the military's weapons aren't much use against armored invaders from the future. Once Torchwood is taken by Dalek attack forces, there is no choice but to take to the streets. While Ross and Colonel Lethbridge try to rendesvous with USPAT, Tosh and Tommy are charged with getting Rose to safety, and Ian and Gwen are sent to the police to help prepare them for the Hungry Storm the Daleks promise once the remains of the Dalek Fleet arrive. The Time Lords defeated the Daleks once, but the Doctor isn't ready to face the truth of what happened on the battlefield of Arcadia -- or why he no longer has a name of his own._

From the Torchwood Quotes File, part of the unofficial Torchwood Fansite:

You don't understand. When we defeated the Daleks, they took us down with them -- every man, woman, and child of my race died that day. I died. My first death, on the fringe of the Arcadia battlefield over my homeworld. They died and I died but only I got up again afterwards. That's my punishment. Being the last. Because I knew that to destroy the Daleks I'd have to destroy the Time Lords too. I sunk deep in a half-open rift and blew it wide, flipped the switch, pressed the button that set all of space ablaze. When you get to the stars again you can go there -- your people call it the Pillars of Creation. You _should_ go there, and look on the place where my people ended their days, and listen to see if you can still hear the screaming. Because I can. Everywhere I go, unendingly. It took my people, my home, my name; the Pillars are sealed with the name of a Time Lord, and now the only names I have are those that others give me. The Threefold Man, the Lonely God, the Inashara, the Rage of Kings. But never a name for me. No end for me. Not until I die. No home for me. My home is ash and cinders, hidden beyond the stars...and all for nothing, if the Daleks gain a foothold here on Earth.   
\-- The Doctor

***

At USPAT all was chaos, but the Colonel had the proper rank insignia on his shirt and the hierarchy of the military kicked in fast. He gave orders as if he'd never left, and Ross watched in awe as the sheer force of his personality made the soldiers obey. 

"Lieutenant Jenkins!" he called, and Ross hurried over.

"Sir," he said.

"The Air Force is going to try to take them in the air but they've never fought Daleks and I have. They're going to get wiped out of the sky. They'll buy us a few minutes at the most. What I want is a soldier on every street armed with a pulse-cannon weapon."

"You're going to have to put them on the major arteries only, we don't have that kind of arms stock on hand. We weren't expecting a full-on invasion."

"Well, an invasion's what we're going to get and they're not going to target just Chicago. We're going to have to look after ourselves. You're with me."

"Sir, I can be of more use leading a squad -- "

"With me, Lieutenant Jenkins," the Colonel said, and Ross followed him down the hall. 

"Where are we going?"

"What's your security clearance?" Lethbridge asked.

"Officially level three. But I'm liaised with Torchwood, so I've never had any trouble getting anything below level nine."

"This is level twelve," Lethbridge answered, and threw wide the doors of a hangar bay.

Inside was a hulking, sharp-edged machine, vaguely tank-shaped but looking more like some kind of alien monster hunched over in sleep. Ross's eyes widened. 

"It's a Tac-Assault vehicle, prototype. Built from plans we intercepted between two mercenary forces who wanted to use Earth as a neutral territory and then blew each other out of space," Lethbridge said. "Get in. I need a copilot."

"Well, I suppose we could cut a swath with it," Ross said, hooking a boot on the heavy treads and hoisting himself up to an open porthole. "But it can't move very fast."

"Oh yeah?" Lethbridge asked, following him inside and settling himself at the controls. "There's one important fact about the TAV-P that you haven't noticed yet."

"Sir?"

"It flies."

Lethbridge lifted the ship off the ground effortlessly, the yoke resting easy in his hands, and pulled it out of the hangar.

"This is TAV-P vehicle callsign Valiant," he said into the radio. "We are cleared. We'll take point in low orbit; you flyboys watch for falling debris, you hear?"

"Valiant, this is flight," came a voice over the radio. "Pilot, identify yourself."

"Colonel Gordon Lethbridge, space adventurer, in the Captain's chair," Lethbridge said. 

"Lieutenant Ross Jenkins, copilot," Ross added.

"Jenkins? Torchwood's Jenkins?"

"Affirmative, flight," Ross said, fighting vertigo as the ground dropped away beneath them. "Torchwood should be in contact soon if they haven't already."

"Captain Harkness says to tell you that the package is secured, Lieutenant."

"Rose is safe," he told Lethbridge, who smiled bitterly.

"Nobody's safe against the Daleks," he said. "Come on, kid, get your hands in the grips and let's blow some aliens out of the sky."

***

Excerpt from the shooting script for: The Battle Of Chicago  
Story & Teleplay by: Ellis Graveworthy  
Directed by: Edgar van Scyoc

INT - POLICE STATION

IAN is operating the CB radio; GWEN is taking reports from weary, filthy-looking police officers. 

IAN  
No, you need to clear this goddamn channel. I don't care who you are, swap a channel, I need to reach Captain Harkness. Oh? You're going to pull rank? This is Ian Leone of Torchwood, Authorization code nine-alpha-juliet-six-six. Yeah, that's what I thought. Captain? Jack? Jack Harkness? Anyone at Torchwood, come in?

GWEN  
Anything yet?

IAN  
Not yet.

GWEN  
There's rioting in Gold Coast.

IAN  
Well, that's where the good looting is. Can you dispatch USPAT from here?

GWEN  
Already done.

The CB crackles.

JACK [on CB]  
Ian? Gwen? Tosh? Tommy? Owen? Anyone?

IAN  
Jack! Yes, it's Ian, we're here, Gwen's with me.

JACK [on CB]  
Status report?

IAN  
Heavy casualties in the lower atmosphere, but the Valiant's softening them up. We might win this, I think.

JACK [on CB]  
Lethbridge and Ross are in the Valiant.

IAN  
Well, I'll have to buy them dinner. 

JACK [on CB]  
Have you seen the sky?

IAN  
Sorry, what?

JACK [on CB]  
Put the radio down and go look outside.

IAN frowns but obeys, GWEN following. 

EXT - FRONT OF POLICE STATION - DAY

IAN and GWEN step out of the police station, shading their eyes, and stare upwards in shock. Pan up to the sky, which is an angry red and grey.

IAN  
Ash from the explosions. Fire in the sky. The Doctor was right. Thousands of miles of fire in the sky.

EXT - SPACE

Shot of the VALIANT, hovering over the Earth.

INT - VALIANT 

LETHBRIDGE leans forward in his seat and rests his head on the steering yoke. ROSS lets out a breath of relief.

ROSS  
Hey, we're still alive.

LETHBRIDGE  
What a rush.

ROSS  
Did we win? 

LETHBRIDGE looks up at him, a grin spreading across his face. 

LETHBRIDGE  
We won. You did great, kid.

ROSS  
You know I didn't really think the first thing I did with my dad would be to blow up an entire army of invading aliens. I was thinking more like, you know, the zoo or something.

LETHBRIDGE  
You want the zoo?

ROSS  
Obviously not anymore.

[beat]

LETHBRIDGE  
What do you want?

ROSS  
Just to know who you are. What kind of man my dad is. To have you know me. 

LETHBRIDGE  
That's pretty low expectations. Don't most kids want cars or something?

ROSS  
So you think that'd be an easy thing? Something you could do?

LETHBRIDGE  
[considering]  
Yeah. I do.   
[pause]  
If I'd known before we crossed timelines, I would have gone back. 

ROSS  
Oh no.

LETHBRIDGE  
No, I mean -- 

ROSS  
Oh, no, oh no, look at the radar. 

LETHBRIDGE looks down. There is a massive object, easily twice the size of the army they just defeated, headed towards them. It is the DALEK COMMAND SHIP, surrounded by a cloud of Daleks. LETHBRIDGE takes a deep breath and grips the yoke again. 

LETHBRIDGE  
We keep shooting. When the weapons systems go down, we get as close to the center as we can and then we trigger the self-destruct. 

He glances at ROSS. ROSS is steeling himself, biting his lip, looking young and very afraid. 

LETHBRIDGE  
I'm sorry. This is the kind of man I am. 

ROSS  
You say that like it's a bad thing. 

LETHBRIDGE  
There's no time to take you back, or I would.

ROSS  
I'd rather die here. 

LETHBRIDGE   
Then let's take as many of them out with us as we can. Just like the Time Lords.

ROSS   
Transmitting information to USPAT headquarters and Torchwood Hub now. Flight plan filed. 

LETHBRIDGE  
Doctor, Captain Harkness, if you're listening -- dulce et decorum est.

ROSS  
Morituri te salutant.

EXT - SPACE

The VALIANT wheels, defiantly, and turns its back to Earth, guns facing forward. Pan back from the VALIANT to take in the first ragged edge of the Dalek fleet, then further and further until the VALIANT is dwarfed by the mass of Daleks, small ships, and one enormous spherical ship, studded like individual Daleks are with larger half-circles. 

TO BE CONTINUED. 

***

TRILOGY PART THREE: PRO PATRIA, PRO FILIUS   
_The Daleks have taken Chicago, as well as most of the world's major cities. Dozens of national governments lie in ruins. Gordon Lethbridge and Ross Jenkins are presumed dead. Rose, Gwen, and Tosh have gathered a troop of USPAT soldiers on the bridges of the river and are holding the Daleks from downtown, but the south side has fallen and the west suburbs are burning. Ian is missing, and Tommy is trapped with the Doctor, trying desperately to hack into the Dalek operating code. The Daleks have issued an ultimatum to the Doctor: give himself up and the rest of Earth can go free, an ultimatum and a lie which the Doctor has refused out of hand. The only solution seems to be a frontal assault on the Dalek flagship, to reach the nerve center of the fleet and destroy the commanding officer who issues the Daleks their orders. Sneaking aboard a Dalek ship is no easy task, but nobody works for Torchwood because it's easy. Can they reach the ship before it's too late? And how do you blow up a spaceship that exists out of phase with time? The Doctor's about to find out..._

The Valiant was holding up surprisingly well, though Gordon didn't think they were going to live to provide a report on its first test-flight in combat. Still, no time to think about that now; he was concentrating on steering with one hand and firing with the other, while Ross handily potted ship after ship with the front-mounted cannons.

"I'm having an idea," Ross shouted, over the whine of the engines and the roar of dying Daleks all around them.

"Now would be the time," Gordon managed through gritted teeth.

"What's powering this thing, a reactor core? Can we eject it?"

"We'll be sitting ducks!"

"Get us as close as possible to the big ship and we'll start the self-destruct on the reactor. We jettison, which should give us enough push to still be moving when the explosion happens. We can ride the shockwave back to Earth. Maybe the cannons can be salvaged for a ground-based defense."

Gordon felt an odd swell of pride. "Well, your mother didn't raise an idiot, did she? Re-entry's going to be a bitch."

"Not as much of a bitch as dying."

"Good point. Can you raise Flight?"

"No answer. Hasn't been for ten minutes."

"Okay. Hold on and keep firing. We're going in."

***

In the Hub, working three different telephones and the CB radio, Jack suddenly looked up. "OWEN, WE HAVE INCOMING!"

"On it!" Owen called, shoving himself over to Tosh and Tommy's workstation. "Oh my god. It's the Valiant. Jesus, they're coming in fast."

"The Valiant? I thought they were going to self-destruct!"

"I thought the explosion three minutes ago _was_ the self-destruct. Uh, Jack," Owen added.

"Yeah?"

"They're on a direct course for the plaza."

"Valiant to Torchwood, Valiant to USPAT, Valiant to flight, Valiant to any military presence in Chicago -- "

"Torchwood here, Valiant," Jack said urgently. "What's your status?"

"Permission to land, Captain Harkness."

"Ross Jenkins, is that you?"

"Me and the Colonel, Captain. We're coming in hot. Flyover of the river confirms that someone's holding the line around the loop."

"Gwen and Tosh," Jack confirmed. "Valiant, you are cleared to land. How are your weapons?"

"Thrashed but functioning. Where's the Doctor?" 

"Missing. We saw him with Tommy a while ago but we haven't had any communication from them or Ian," Owen said, as Jack's face tightened. "It's a hell of a mess down here. New York's been destroyed completely. Reports coming in that France is on fire."

"What, Paris?"

"All of France," Jack said. "We lost all communication with Japan twenty minutes ago."

"ETA is thirty seconds; do we need cover fire?"

"I'll come up to meet you," Jack said, and ran for the door. "Owen!"

"Jack," Owen said, looking frustrated and impotent in his chair.

"The Daleks can't take the Hub. You can't let that happen. If they get this far the planet's gone anyway."

"What do I do?" Owen asked. Jack reached out, stroked a hand through his hair, and kissed his forehead.

"If they breach the Hub, open the Rift," he said. "We'll take them in with us. They won't get anyone else."

"Yes, Captain."

Topside, Jack arrived just in time to see the Valiant hovering over the Plaza, easing itself down carefully. There were blackened grooves all over the hull, and a handful of missing pieces, but she looked as though she could still kick a little ass if she wanted. 

Once it had settled, the entry hatch popped and Ross staggered out, almost falling to the ground, shaking as he tried to stand. Jack hauled him up and held him while Lethbridge followed, slightly more steadily but no less pale and drawn. Ross pushed away from Jack and leaned heavily on Lethbridge's shoulders as the Colonel gathered him up and held him tightly. 

"You're amazing," he heard Lethbridge murmur. "You're perfect. But we still have fighting to do, kiddo."

Ross nodded against his father's shoulder and straightened. 

"We have two functional cannons and low-flight capability," he said, turning to Jack. "Tell us where to go."

Jack was opening his mouth when something crackled in his ear.

"Hey, Captain," said Tommy's voice, over the comm. "I've got a Doctor here and a decommissioned Dalek. If you can get me to Dalek High Command or whatever they call themselves, I'm pretty sure I can end this."

"Good to hear you, Tommy, but the Valiant's out of commission," Jack said. "We're earthbound, we're going to have to fight from here."

"Not if you can blast your way across the bridge," a new voice, the Doctor, sounding almost cheerful. "You get me to the TARDIS and we can strip the Dalek race to its atoms."

Jack glanced at Ross, who was already disengaging the cannons from the Valiant and slinging them over his shoulders.

"Tell us where you are," he said, and smiled grimly. 

***

They picked up Tosh and Rose crossing the Michigan Avenue bridge, leaving Gwen behind on the Erie bridge, shouting defiance from the El tracks that ran over the top of it. Ian joined them as they ran across the Plaza, tripping an explosion in the Tribune building that sent Daleks spinning away to crash into the other high-rises. Glass shattered as many of them hit Trump tower, and as they took cover against the wall of a building they all turned to see it crashing into the river -- across the river, taking out several buildings on the other side of it. Jack, alone, ran across the open space between buildings and let himself down to North Water, where Tommy and the Doctor were holed up in the parking garage. Ian and Rose hauled them up, Tommy carrying a large chunk of a Dalek in one hand, his laptop strapped to his back.

"They all take commands from someone in the nerve center of the ship," he said.

"They've evolved," the Doctor added. "Centralised command is more efficient. These are just drones -- none of them can take command. Take away their boss and we can clean them up easily."

"Can you get us to the command center?" Jack asked. The Doctor hesitated. "Can you?"

"Tommy needs to come," he said slowly. "And we'll need cover fire."

"So?"

"So this is a suicide mission. For them," the Doctor said. 

"Well, we've already done one of those today," Lethbridge replied. 

"I'm game," Ross agreed. "Tosh?"

"I'll go," Tosh said.

"Tosh, no -- " Tommy started.

"Tamaki, if you go, I go," Tosh said. "That's just the way it is."

"I just blew up the Tribune building," Ian said. "I'm good. Point the way."

Rose just slipped her hand into the Doctor's and smiled at him. 

"We can't let them get past Earth," Jack said. "If Earth falls, they'll just move on, stronger and hungrier. If we're going to die anyway, let's die protecting the universe, right?"

"Screaming in the face of the hungry storm," the Doctor said.

"Let the great gods find out their enemies now," Ross said. Everyone looked at him. "What? It's Shakespeare. King Lear. In the storm."

The Doctor held out his hand, and the door to the TARDIS opened. Light spilled out. The Torchwood agents stood aside to let Lethbridge and Rose go first. 

"You wanted to know why the Earth matters to me," the Doctor said, gripping Jack's shoulder to stop him as he passed. His voice was low, and for the first time it shook. "This is why."

He followed Jack inside and ran to the console, pointing Rose to the other side.

"We're going to jump straight to the Dalek ship," he said, as the TARDIS began to groan, the tubes inside the central column moving up and down with increasing speed. "I'll get as close to the center as I can. Rose, ride the time mix, keep us temporal."

"Got it," Rose said, smiling at him.

"Okay. Harkness and I go first," Lethbridge announced, clinging to one of the support columns as the ship began to judder and jerk. "I'll carry one of the cannons. The Doctor and Tommy follow. Ross and -- what's your name...Leone?"

"Ian Leone, Colonel."

"Take the other cannon, you two will flank them. Rose and Toshiko, you're on rear point. Our objective is to protect Tommy and the Doctor long enough to get the job done. We leave the same way we came; if anyone drops we'll pick them up on the way out. Once we're out, radio anyone on Earth who's listening and tell them to go after the remaining Daleks."

"I love a man who takes charge," Jack murmured to Tosh.

"Time and place, Jack," Tosh replied. Jack was about to reply when the TARDIS jerked again, sending everyone sprawling.

"Oh, no, nonononono," the Doctor said, skidding around the console and shouldering Rose out of the way. 

"What is it?" Tosh called. 

"The ship's out of phase. It's -- god, the energy must be enormous -- it's slightly outside of time. Hold on, this is going to be a rough landing."

"Out of phase," Jack said. "But that means -- "

"Yeah, when we blow the central command it's going to snap back in and we'll have two at once, and that's going to create a timestorm. Can't be helped," the Doctor said. 

"What does that mean?" Ian demanded.

"Well, either we're all going to die, or we're going to create a paradox and rip a temporary hole in time," the Doctor retorted. "Which is fun if you want a little roller-coaster ride. Not as fun if you don't know where you're going to end up."

"Oh," Ian said. "Is that all."

Jack's hand, flailing for purchase on the tilting floor of the TARDIS, found Ian's and gripped it tightly. 

***

Sam's Three Things About Torchwood AND Doctor Who, Trilogy Part The Third! Spoilers for Pro Patria, Pro Filius: Doctor Who Seriously Needs An Easy Button.

1\. How great was this episode. How great was this trilogy? Seriously, it seems a little hinky on the surface but once you dig into the whole Space Opera gestalt that they're rocking it's just plain awesome. Everything slotted into place like magic and while I do hate a deus-ex-machina, I really wasn't looking forward to the rest of the Torchwood season being the team trying to rebuild in a post-apocalyptic dystopia. So I'm glad that the timestorm set the world back thirty-six hours. And the Dalek fleet just _winking_ out of existence while Torchwood watched all gleeful because they're the only ones who know why, that was GREAT. 

2\. I know it's terrible and sad and tragic that Lethbridge died, but I think also it had to happen. No way were they just going to be allowed to play happy families. The point is that Lethbridge starts out uneasy and then starts to think, okay, I can do this father thing, and even though he barely knows Ross he acknowledges the blood-bond between them. There's always this theme with these shows of taking responsibility -- whether it's for something you did or for something humanity as a whole has done, like with Jack last season. Lethbridge stepped up and did what he had to, to protect his son and protect the Earth. And it's a pretty senseless death, being shot by a Dalek, but his motivations make it poetic. It was a good thing.

3\. That having been said, I could have done without the extended funeral scene; the heartbreaking moment when Lethbridge gives him the PDA and then Jack has to pull Ross away from his body was enough. But hey, now Ross has the PDA, what's he going to do with it? 

3a. ROSE/ROSS FTW Y/Y?

***

Posted by **erika_leone** in LJ Community **torch_who** :


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gareth David-Lloyd joins the Doctor Who cast as Ross Jenkins, helping the Doctor rescue displaced hospitals and meeting William Shakespeare while Torchwood battles alien "werewolves" and confronts victims of the Rift. Meanwhile, Edgar van Scyoc shows off his new tattoo -- and Edgar and Ellis must make some hard decisions when their relationship is threatened by the press.

DOCTOR WHO 1x16: THE NEW KID   
_It's an unfortunate coincidence that Ross Jenkins is taken to Stroger Memorial Hospital to recover from his battle with the Daleks at the same time as a bloodsucking alien vampire takes up residence. The Shadow Proclamation, an intergalactic police force, has been charged with bringing her in. To keep her from escaping, they decide to transplant the entire hospital to the moon. Ross's one bit of luck is that Rose and the Doctor were visiting him when it happened. Three against an army isn't great odds, but then the Doctor specialises in long odds...and Ross has a few surprises up his sleeve._

Excerpt from the shooting script for Episode 1x16: The New Kid.  
Story by: Ellis Graveworthy  
Teleplay by: Ellis Graveworthy and Richard Allen

INT - HOSPITAL - DAY

Blurry shapes onscreen and the bleep of a heart monitor in the background. As the camera pulls back, the blurs resolve themselves into ROSS, lying in a hospital bed. He is staring at the camera but mainly into nothing, his face infinitely sad. 

GWEN VO  
The reports on the Invasion That Wasn't have been collated and filed. We've taken witness statements from Rose Tyler and Ross Jenkins, and Tommy's technical specs are in triple-backup storage so that if another fleet comes back we'll know what to do. The Doctor says there won't be any more, but he thought they were destroyed at the battle of Arcadia, too.

ROSS turns his head as the door enters; it's a nurse, carrying a tray of food. He pushes himself up and lets her set it in front of him. 

GWEN VO  
It's been a hard adjustment for all of us. We know what really happened, and the image of the buildings falling is one I can't put out of my head. I've spoken with Ian and Owen and they both think we'll all feel better when the thirty-six hours have passed and we feel like we're in "real" time again. Tosh and Tommy don't want to talk about it -- not with anyone but each other, anyway.

ROSS picks at his food listlessly.

GWEN VO  
Torchwood has completed and closed the case on the invasion. Now I think we need to find some way to close the case in our own heads.   
[beat]  
Ross Jenkins has been temporarily removed from duty at USPAT for medical and personal reasons.   
[a click]  
This concludes the summary notes on Torchwood Event File 9926. Officer Gwen Cooper-Williams, digital signature.

The door opens and ROSE puts her head in; ROSS immediately lights up, looking behind her expectantly for the DOCTOR. Instead, a huge bouquet of flowers appears.

Time-jump; ROSS has shoved the hospital food away and the flowers are now in a vase, sitting on a shelf next to his bed. We can see that he has bandages on one arm under his hospital pyjamas. ROSE and the DOCTOR are sitting next to his bed.

ROSS  
I have to admit I thought you two would be gone by now. Tosh came to visit me yesterday, she said you'd both disappeared.

ROSE  
Well, we did, kind of. We took a little jump. The timestorm made antsy-pants here anxious.

DOCTOR  
I'm not even going to dignify the term "antsy pants" with a response.

ROSE  
And I had to bully him into coming to see you. But I wanted to. Because, you know. Saved The World Club and everything.

ROSS  
I'm glad. I wanted to see you again. I -- I had something for you, actually. 

He reaches over to the shelf and opens a drawer, pulling LETHBRIDGE's PDA out from under a bag of cotton balls. ROSE bites her lip and the DOCTOR looks sad. 

ROSS   
It belonged to the Col -- to my father. He gave it to me before he died. 

ROSE  
We know. I saw him use it all the time. 

ROSS  
He said I should destroy it but...

DOCTOR  
You're not as big on destruction as he was.

ROSS  
I read through it. I thought maybe if there was anyone I should call...  
[beat]  
He was keeping notes on it. About you and Rose. Recommendations for your capture, at first. Later, just informational notes. Places he'd been with you. Things you showed him.

DOCTOR  
I knew. 

ROSS  
And you still let him keep it? He was going to give it to USPAT.

DOCTOR  
Humans...  
[shakes his head]  
If I don't want to be held, you won't hold me. If I don't want to be caught, you won't catch me. Maybe out there is something that can, but not humans. Not yet. 

The DOCTOR glances at ROSE, who is studying the PDA as if she can't believe it's real.

DOCTOR  
We should go. I don't think we'll be passing this way again anytime soon.

ROSS  
Maybe that's best.

ROSE  
Will you be okay?

ROSS waves off her concern.

ROSS  
I've got USPAT and Torchwood. I'll be fine. 

Suddenly the room shakes; there is a sharp jolt that nearly throws ROSS out of the bed. 

DOCTOR  
What on...? Rose?

ROSE  
[picking herself up]  
What is it now?

DOCTOR  
Look at the window.

THE DOCTOR and ROSE both look. Eventually ROSS slides out of the bed and carefully disengages the various IV tubes and monitors, joining them. 

INT - HOSPITAL - VIEW OF OUTSIDE

Over their shoulders, we see the wide hospital window, looking out on a blank expanse of space. Below them is a white landscape devoid of features; far beyond them, the EARTH swings into view.

OPENING CREDITS.

***

FINAL SCENE: 

EXT - HOSPITAL FRONT ENTRY - DAY

ROSS is sitting on a park bench, studying the PDA. He speaks apparently to no-one.

ROSS  
It's still yours if you want it. 

The DOCTOR appears next to the bench, looking awkward. 

DOCTOR  
You should have it. It was your father's. 

ROSS  
Doesn't give a very good report of him.

DOCTOR  
You're too old to believe in putting your parents on a pedestal.

ROSS  
I'd only known him three days.

DOCTOR  
Grief is for the finality of death, not the value of the person lost.  
[ROSS looks up.]  
Now you don't have hope anymore. That's what will crush you, if you let it.

ROSS  
How did you survive?

The DOCTOR glances at ROSE, who is buying a hot dog from a cart nearby.

DOCTOR  
I found a new reason to hope.   
[pause]  
Rose and I are leaving. Thank you for your help. 

ROSS  
Good luck.

The DOCTOR turns and walks away. ROSS looks down at the PDA, clenches it tightly, and makes a decision. 

ROSS  
[calling out]  
I want to come with you.

The DOCTOR stops but doesn't react otherwise. 

ROSS  
This was what I dreamed about, going to the stars, and you and Rose look like you could use a third. I'm not my father but -- 

DOCTOR  
You're yourself.

ROSS  
So take me with you. Please.

DOCTOR  
Your father is dead because of me.

ROSS  
I exist because of you. And I can see you waiting to take me apart, find out what I am. I can see you fighting against it. Let me come with you and you can find out. I'll let you.

Focus on the DOCTOR's face; he looks torn and miserable. Before he turns around he carefully reschools his features into a mask of cheerful, paternal indulgence.

DOCTOR  
Rose needed a new playmate anyway. Come on.

ROSS bolts up out of the bench and catches up with him as they reach ROSE, who smiles and hugs ROSS with one arm, then presents him with a candy bar. They walk away, laughing.

BLACKOUT.

***

Edgar van Scyoc's public image was edgy and dark and a little bit sinister, which was exactly the way he liked it. He didn't think he was a particularly dark or sinister man, though he would grant the public "edgy". 

Not that he felt very edgy at the moment, even, lying in a hotel room bed in Vancouver, the latest show in the can and filming breaking for three blissful weeks so that Tennant could rehearse for _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead_ at Steppenwolf. Steppenwolf had been good to them over the years, letting them nick props and borrow rehearsal space at times, and it was the least they could do to lend out their lead for a few weeks. Especially since it meant he got three blissful weeks in which to loaf around Vancouver and oversee some of the Doctor Who filming. 

A hand touched his shoulder; he smiled. 

And then there was Ellis.

"You have a new tattoo," Ellis said, a querying but not-quite-disapproving note in his voice. 

"Mm. I thought about asking you if I should do it, but -- "

"It's your body," Ellis replied. 

Ellis had been surprised by the tattoos, the first time he saw them, but not as freaked out as some of Edgar's girlfriends had been. He'd touched each one in turn, demanding that a sleepy Edgar explain them to him, tell him their stories. 

Just below the base of the neck, the word _chiule_ \-- first word in the English language, and his first tattoo, the night before he graduated film school. Three masks on the left shoulderblade, one for every Humana Festival he'd taken a play to; the logo of a short-lived science-fiction drama on his right shoulder, where for the thirteen episodes that existed he'd been a very, very junior director's assistant. 

Over his spine, between his shoulderblades -- and hadn't that hurt like a bitch -- a stylized pair of fangs. He'd gotten them prematurely, when he started his assistant job on Buffy the Vampire Slayer; he might have shelled out for something a little fancier if he'd known by the following year he'd have a director's credit and two scripts to his name. Joss Whedon had liked Edgar's style and helped him out a lot when he was first starting; he still owed him for that. He'd wanted to take on Firefly and turn it around, when it was cancelled, but he couldn't then; years later when he managed to haul Studio Sixty up by its bootstraps and get it a second season he'd gone to get the logo of the fictional NBS network directly under the fangs. 

There'd been many shows over the years -- god, a horrible stint on Ally McBeal, one episode (all he could take) of Dawson's Creek, a decent run on The X-Files, two scripts and a couple of episode on the Stargate franchise, a gig with Nip/Tuck -- but those had just been him doing his job. The others were the ones that mattered, the ones that had changed his career. 

He felt Ellis's fingers drift down to the small of his back, just above his hips. The skin was still a little sore, but it had scabbed and peeled nicely, and he was pretty pleased with the result. 

"Ampersand production company," Ellis said. "You remember when we thought that up at what, three in the morning?"

"E & E looked weird," Edgar mumbled. "There's something classic about the ampersand."

"And a mechanical ampersand! That would look _cool!_ " Ellis repeated mockingly. "Though I must admit your tattoo man did a very nice job on all the little gears and pistons and things."

"Thank you."

Ellis's hand flattened over the tattoo, firm and warm. 

"Why do you do it?" he asked. "Do you think you're likely to forget?"

"These things changed me," Edgar said. "I like having a sign of that. Gives me something to talk about in bed," he added, angling for a laugh, but when he looked over his shoulder Ellis was studying him with serious eyes.

"And yet you waited until now to get the tattoo."

"I wasn't sure it was going to change my life until now," he said.

***

TORCHWOOD 2x16: TOOTH AND CLAW   
_Werewolves? In Chicago? It's a ridiculous thought, but when Ian and Jack go out after a weevil and come back with more than the usual number of lacerations, everyone has to consider it as a serious possibility. The hunt is on when the next full moon rises, but the "werewolves of Chicago" seem hesitant to engage -- and as the chase becomes more and more desperate, the team begin to wonder who the real vicious animals are._

Though it wasn't exactly frightening at night, Lurie Garden was a little forbidding; Ian had always heard people giving warnings about staying away from this or that neighborhood after dark, but he knew the truth was that the most dangerous place to wander after dark was downtown, where tourists were considered easy targets. Not that he and Jack were easy targets, either one, but they were chasing something a little more dangerous than the average mugger. The full moon gave more light than usual, anyway. 

"I still say it's too cold for weevils," he said, rubbing his gloved hands together and blowing into them. Jack took a swig of tea from the thermos flask and offered it to him, but he waved it off.

"They're warm-blooded," Jack said. "It's never too cold for Weevils."

"That's the worst slogan _ever_ ," Ian replied. "Honestly -- "

"Hang on," Jack said, putting up a hand. "Did you hear that?"

Ian turned his head, listening; Jack was starting to look like a dog on the scent, hungry and eager...and it shouldn't excite him, but it did. Weevil-hunting was the one time Jack left Torchwood and the burden he carried behind him and was just purely himself. A hunter. 

A shadow flickered in the distance. Jack grinned at him.

"Told you so," he said, and took off running. 

Weevils in the sewers and the abandoned underground tunnels tended to hunt in gangs, but aboveground they were almost always solo; Tosh had a theory that the above-ground hunters were pack members that had been kicked out. There was safety in numbers for a Weevil, after all -- they couldn't fix on more than one target at a time, as hunting with Jack-as-bait had often proved. Ian circled wide, giving Jack a chance to draw its attention. 

Jack turned his flashlight directly on the lumbering figure, and Ian had a brief vision of sleek fur over corded muscle before he realized something wasn't right. The shadow moved too fast, darting out of the light, and Jack whistled and took off running again. Ian moved before thinking, following the usual pattern and trying to intercept. He was within ten feet of it when he caught the gleam of moonlight on teeth. 

It was fast, too fast, and too big for a Weevil, and it had _fangs_ \-- 

The last thing Ian heard before the world went dark was Jack calling his name in a panic. 

***

He woke briefly, a firebrand burning its way down his chest, and tried to lie still and let the pain subside. When it began to drop away he became aware of voices in the room, angry voices, but he wasn't certain he was prepared for anger yet, and he kept his eyes closed.

" -- why I keep warning you about taking him hunting, Jack!"

"You act like I'm ordering to go. Half the time he starts it."

"That's no excuse. He's twenty-five, for god's sake." 

Owen, that was Owen. He opened his eyes to slits; Owen was standing nearby, leaning on his cane and getting all five-foot-nine of him up into Jack's face. 

"Did you think I was unaware of that, Owen?" Jack asked. "I know it. Better than anyone."

"I know he seems experienced but -- "

"You're bloody right he does," Jack snarled. Ian closed his eyes and listened as Jack's voice gentled. "He's seen too much for his years. You all have. And you all go into it now, every time, with your eyes open."

"Are yours open, Jack? You can't die! And you forget sometimes that _we can!_ "

Silence for a long time. Ian tried to shift his body, felt the pain well up again, and grunted. 

"He's waking up," Jack said. "Ian?"

"Ow," Ian managed. 

"Yeah, ow is right," Owen answered, and by the sound of it he was limping around to the other side of the bed. "You weren't supposed to wake up just yet, errand boy."

Cool relief washed over him as Owen pushed something into his IV; the world faded away a lot more gently this time.

"What was it, anyway?" he heard Owen ask.

"Don't know. Big. Teeth and claws. Fur."

"Werewolf," Ian muttered as he slipped down.

***

Excerpt from the shooting script for Episode 2x16: Tooth And Claw.  
Story & Teleplay by: Edgar van Scyoc

INT - HUB - SHOWER ROOM

IAN is standing in the HUB communal shower room, shirtless, examining himself in a mirror. There are several long, healing scars on his chest, some with stitches still in them. JACK appears behind him, fully dressed. IAN stands still as JACK approaches and kisses him on the shoulder.

JACK  
Ready to go hunting with us tonight?

IAN  
No.

JACK  
You don't have to go.

IAN  
I'm pretty sure I do.   
[pause]  
Here's the thing.

JACK  
[affectionate]  
What's the thing? 

IAN  
If it really is a werewolf. 

JACK  
Werewolves aren't real.

IAN  
But if they were, are we sure I'm not one, now?

JACK  
It's not a werewolf. Werewolves aren't real. But if it had been a werewolf, and on the incredibly long odds that it transmitted lycanthropy to you through its claws, and on the further long odds that neither Owen nor myself would notice any changes in you, then I promise you that the first time you try to hurt someone I'll shoot you in the head. Sound good?

IAN  
You say the nicest things.

JACK  
Get dressed. Work to do. 

JACK slaps him on the ass as he walks away. IAN smiles and pulls his shirt over his head, then leans in close to the mirror and double-checks his teeth for signs of fangs. 

***

"Ian! IAN!"

Jack rounded the corner and slammed into the wall opposite, staggering forward, the rest of the team on his heels. The sputtering lights on the street didn't show much of the alley, but he could see enough. 

The werewolf -- really, what else could you call them? -- was huddled on the ground, cradling its injured arm and keening. Blood matted its fur and stained its white claws dark. But...there was intelligence in the shiny black eyes, and it wasn't trying to escape or fight back. Just waiting. Patiently.

Ian stood a few feet away, breathing hard, gun trained on it. His hand shook slightly.

"O-kay," Jack said slowly. "Ian, you heard Tosh on the comms. They're not hostile."

Ian drew a deep breath and pulled the safety on his gun.

"Ian, they're intelligent. It's hurt. It's not going to attack you."

Jack edged closer. Ian's eyes were wide and staring, fixed on the werewolf's eyes. 

"It's not going to hurt you," Jack continued. "But you can hurt it. Are you going to be that man, Ian? Humanity's on the cusp of conquering that urge to kill."

"Are you sure that's a good thing?" Ian asked, voice harsh.

"Yes, I am. Because I come from a time past the cusp. I'm here in this world and I'm staying here, Ian, but the world is a better place when people decide to stop..." Jack slid his fingers along the barrel, holding it. He didn't try to turn it yet; Ian's finger was taut on the trigger. "Torchwood doesn't destroy just because it doesn't understand."

Ian's eyes shifted from the werewolf to Jack's face. 

"Don't be the monster, Ian." Jack tightened his grip on the barrel. "Let go of it."

Ian released the gun, so fast that Jack almost dropped it, and stepped back. He turned, as if to run, but the rest of the team was there to stop him. Gwen grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him close; Tommy stepped up to his shoulder and leaned against him, cautiously. 

Jack replaced the safety on the gun, shoved it in his pants next to his own, and turned his attention away. 

"You speak English?" he asked, bending down. The werewolf stared at him. "Unarmed, look." He held up his hands and twisted them at the wrists. " _You speak Esperanto?_ "

A shake of the head.

" _Kehani? Top Sector Standard? New Portugese?_ " No reaction other than a slight tremor. " _Boeshan Sector Low?_ "

At this, the werewolf sat up, tilting its head.

Jack could have laughed. He hadn't spoken that language since he was fifteen and left home. 

" _You speak Boeshan Sector Low?"_ Jack asked again. 

" _Yes,_ " the werewolf answered. " _It hurts._ "

" _I know, I know,_ " Jack crooned, holding out his hand. " _Listen, I can take you somewhere safe. I know you don't trust me, but there's been a misunderstanding. We're landbound aid agents. We can help you._ "

" _Your bodyguard,_ " the werewolf said, tipping its head at Ian. Owen had caught up and was shining a light in his eyes, checking him for head injuries.

" _He won't hurt you. He's --_ " Jack actually had to search for the word before it would come to him. " _They are my family-bond. All of them back there._ "

" _Lucky man,_ " the werewolf drawled, letting Jack wrap his shirt around the injured arm.

" _The dark-haired one -- he's my only partner-bond._ "

" _Ah. Strange rituals you have here. Will he be well?_ "

" _He's young. They bounce back._ "

Jack heard something approaching laughter from the werewolf's throat.

" _You're a good bondfather._ "

" _Thanks. Come on -- let's get your arm seen to,_ " Jack said. 

***

Courtesy of the Torchwood Extras official website:

Captain's Blog for Episode 2.16: Tooth And Claw  
Ongoing Archive Notes  
Torchwood 3  
Volume 73, Week 16

Alien activity: Space werewolves. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. They're a race I've never encountered before; the poor kids were far from home and had to make an emergency stop for repairs. We just happened to catch one on an unlucky night. They look like us, most of the time -- sort of like us, anyway. Last time we ran into each other I spooked one, she nailed Ian...cultural misunderstanding. That almost got Ian killed. Great.

Rift activity: Nil. 

Security: Ian had some issues standing down once we'd cornered them. I don't think it'll be an ongoing problem, but I'm going to keep an eye on him. I've seen Torchwood twist people before; I'm not going to let that happen to my people. Especially to Ian. 

Other security issues: We need to be more aware of what's in our skies. Tosh feels bad that the scanner missed the touchdown, but it's this sub-standard 21st-century issue technology. I'm going to rummage in the archives and see if we have anything more effective in the "function-unknown" files. 

Staff: I'm still in everyone's bad books. Every time they see Ian leaving with me to hunt, they get this look. I can't explain to them that if Ian really wants to be there, he'll be there and I'll be glad of the company. If he doesn't want to be there, or he thinks self-preservation is more important, he needs to learn to ask. I think this was a lesson for him -- and if he did need to ask, he would have. 

Other staff issues: Owen's physical therapy progress is heartening and he's been cleared on the gun range. Another few weeks and he'll be back on active duty. I'll be glad of that; we've missed his presence, and I think he's going a little nuts trying to get out of the Hub. 

Other issues: [Private-locked to digital signature, Captain Jack Harkness] Our werewolves, strangely enough, spoke Boeshan Sector Low. I haven't heard it in centuries; it was the first language I learned as a child. They must have come from somewhere near my homeworld. I've never heard of them, which means between now and my hometime they died out, or left the system. Out there, where they are now, Boeshan Alpha is spinning in space, empty, unpopulated, waiting for my family's colony. I can't help but wonder if the war that was fought in the Boeshan sector came out of something as simple and terrible as what we saw tonight. What I saw for just a minute in Ian's eyes.[end private-lock]

Capt. Jack Harkness.

***

TORCHWOOD 2x17: THE SONS OF BLUES   
_Officer Andy, Gwen's old partner on the force, wants help solving a puzzle: What happened to Jonah Bevan, a young man walking home from a party who mysteriously disappeared in full view of his front door? In the course of her investigation, Gwen comes to realise that there have been hundreds of disappearances in Chicago, each correlating to what Tosh and Tommy call an "afterspike" in Rift activity. Jack wants her to shut the investigation down, but many of the vanished are poor African-American southsiders and Gwen can't help but be suspicious of his orders. Once she uncovers the truth, though, she can never go back..._

From the News And Views section of Television Without Pity, "Race And Raciness In The Windy City":

Torchwood may have finally tackled Chicago's elephant in the room, the tough question of the north-south race divide in the Windy City. It's common knowledge to those who view that Gwen, the only African-American cast regular, hails from south of the loop, while her sometimes-foil, Ian Leone, is a northside Italian-American residing in the heart of middle-class middle-urban Wrigleyville. Like the city itself, the mixed-race cast of Torchwood has rarely addressed racism directly. 

Until last night, when Gwen flat-out informed Jack that she believed the intended cover-up of the abduction of dozens of southside African-Americans was a move by establishment law-enforcement to try and make the problem go away. As it turned out, the lead character was only doing what he thought was right in hiding away victims of "The Rift" on an island in Lake Michigan, but the controversy was already started: was it racism? Was Ian taking up the White Man's Burden in helping Gwen uncover the truth? Was it necessary to put two white men on one side of the argument and three minority characters on the other? WAs it an ironic commentary meant to come down on the side of integration and racial harmony? And what do Chicagoans really think about it?

Unfortunately, what the fans think about it is blatantly clear: _hot gay sex!_

Wait, what?

Whether it is a move to remind viewers that Ian and Jack are members of a sexual minority, an intentional distraction, or an incidental scene blown out of proportion, the fact remains that most fans couldn't care less about decoding the message of the episode. Messageboards and fan-blogs exploded over the explicit scene in which Gwen, angry with the world and determined to make Jack see reason, walks in on Jack and Ian _in flagrante_ \-- and in the Hub greenhouse, where nookie is not generally part of the action. 

As sex scenes go, it was pretty harmless: no below-the-waist cinematography (or touching!) and no tongue, either. Still, two shirtless men in a sweaty embrace -- one of whom doesn't even bother to do up his pants when they finally emerge to confront the angry police officer -- is nothing to sneeze at. You can bet the conservative news shows will be all over the episode as soon as they pick their jaws up off the ground. And they won't be talking about race. 

The question remains: was it a piece of incredible misdirection intended to highlight the misdirection going on in the episode, or was it just a gaffe that inadvertently distracted viewers?

***

"I told you we should have cut that scene," Edgar said, propping his feet on the coffeetable and tipping his head back, a bowl of oatmeal balanced on his chest. Ellis, on the other end of the phone line, heaved a sigh.

"It was a good scene. It sharpened the contrast between Gwen's place in Jack's life and Ian's. Maybe we should have just...shifted it to another episode," Ellis replied. "There's no going back now, though. We've been renewed, Edgar. We'll have other episodes in which to be political if we choose."

"I don't like the implication that we used homosexuality as a distraction," Edgar said. 

"Well, some people are saying we used homosexuality to heighten the impact of the racial question. Part of Torchwood's draw is its edginess. That's your spin, and I like it, and it gives us a cheap out in situations such as this."

"Maybe," Edgar said, as something on his phone beeped. "I think someone's calling me or texting me or something."

"Luddite," Ellis said. "Go on. I'll call you later."

Edgar studied his cellphone for a second, then hesitantly pushed the End button. A text-message notification popped up.

PEOPLE MAGAZINE RIGHT NOW

From his agent, apparently. He frowned. He wasn't sure he'd been spotted out with any eligible females this week, but you never knew. He walked to the computer on his kitchen counter and brought up People Magazine's webpage.

_NEW ISSUE TODAY!_ the headline screamed, and Edgar squinted at the thumbnail.

Oh. No. Oh, no -- 

He clicked on it and was rewarded with a full-color, high-resolution cover shot of his own face. His face, in three-quarters profile, and Ellis's face in full profile. Dinner in the middle. A photograph of the two of them having a late-night dinner at OySy. He remembered that meal; he could see his plate of tempura in his head as clearly as in the photograph.

**Life Imitates Art** ran the header, and underneath, _Edgar van Scyoc and Ellis Graveworthy's secret trysts!_

***

"Well," Ellis said, arriving at the Top Secret Emergency Gay Outing meeting in Edgar's office, toting a copy of the magazine. "I will say this for them, it's work worthy of the CIA. Sorry to call you out so early in the morning, Heidi, Marcus," he added, greeting the lawyer and top PR man for Ampersand Productions. 

"Have a seat, El," Edgar said, waving him over without getting up. Ellis studied him for a second before settling down, hip-to-hip, and leaning forward.

"I'm afraid if Edgar had taken a lie-in, we might have waited until church let out, at least, before we had to drag you off," he continued.

"I'm an atheist," Marcus said amiably. 

"I'm getting overtime," Heidi grinned. 

"Before you say anything," Marcus added smoothly, with no pause for either man to open their mouths, "I'm going to take us step by step through how, or if, we control this. We have two options -- you can either go along and hold a press conference to discuss the issue, or you can print a denial and take PR steps to follow up."

"Or if you like we can go full-on Oscar Wilde and sue them," Ellis suggested, smiling. 

"We're outed, Marcus," Edgar said. "You can say it."

"I could, but calling this 'the outing' sounds like we're going on a picnic," Marcus replied. "So here's the first question. How do you two feel about it?"

Ellis darted a glance at Edgar before opening his mouth. 

"I've been quietly out for years," he said. "My family knows, most people who've met me know, probably. I'm not afraid or ashamed of making it known. But," he added, as Marcus tried to speak, "Edgar -- I know you've been -- tried to be circumspect. And neither of us like press conferences. So -- if you want to deny it..."

"No," Edgar answered hastily. "I don't, I just -- well, if we denied it and we wanted to go public later we'd look like lying cowards, anyway, and I wouldn't deny it whatever the impact, but...I worry about the timing. Did you see last night's episode?"

"And there's the publicity," Ellis murmured thoughtfully. 

"Which wouldn't be entirely negative -- probably not even mostly negative," Marcus said. "You have a strong gay and gay-friendly following."

"Heidi, what about the network?" Edgar asked.

"The network has a nondiscrimination policy that expressly mentions sexual orientation."

"Heidi."

She sighed. "Informal policy supports nondiscrimination when the parties involved aren't..."

"Flamboyant?" Ellis asked. "Darrrrling -- "

"Ellis, take this seriously!" Edgar said. 

"It's too funny though, really," Ellis said. "All this fuss, and I know that both of you are sitting there right now wondering which of us tops."

"Edgar!"

"I'm not wondering," Marcus grinned.

"Good for you, lad. The whole thing is built on the supposition that two men in the entertainment industry can't be business partners without sleeping together, I suppose. They've dug up a shared bank account that we use for work expenses, a handful of shared hotel suites where there's usually at least two beds, and a couple of photographs of us doing nothing more informal than _eating ribs with our fingers_."

"If you use a fork it defeats the point!" Edgar retorted. 

There was a quiet cough from Marcus. 

"So you're in agreement that we're not going to move to deny," he said.

"Yes," Edgar said firmly.

"All right. The next step is to decide how you want to go about confirmation. We could simply ignore it and let you two be photographed out together, or you could do an interview -- press conference -- "

"No," the men said in unison.

Edgar steepled his fingers under his chin. "Or we could scoop them."

Marcus frowned. "The magazine's already out."

"Could you get us on a morning talk show tomorrow?" Edgar asked. "The View, Regis and Kelly, something like that?"

"The _View_?" Ellis asked. 

"Know what you're thinking, love it, on it," Marcus said, taking out his phone. "Be right back."

"What are you thinking? How come Marcus knows what you're thinking?" Ellis demanded, as Marcus left the room to make a call.

"If we show up on a Monday morning talk show to talk about race in the episode and they just happen to bring up the magazine, we can laugh at them," Edgar said. "We can say all kinds of things about the ridiculousness of a People Magazine article on it."

There was a moment of thoughtful silence while Ellis digested this.

"I knew you were the sneaky one," he said. 

"Thank you, Ellis."

"But if we go on Regis and Kelly you have to sit near Regis, he frightens me."

***

Transcript of Edgar van Scyoc and Ellis Graveworthy's appearance on The View, April 2009:

Barbara Walters: We were all ready to talk about the episode this morning -- 

Sherri Shepherd: Hunched over in front of the TV, taking notes.

Barbara Walters: Did you take notes?

Sherri Shepherd: Oh, I took notes. I have no memory for things like that. But I wanted -- 

Elisabeth Hasselbeck: No memory!

Sherri Shepherd: -- I wanted to be well informed. Anyway. 

Joy Behar: And of course, did anyone here not enjoy the greenhouse scene? 

Whoopi Goldberg: But, we decided we were going to keep the discussion focused on the message of the show.

Ellis Graveworthy: And then you all got People Magazine through your letter flaps.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck: Isn't it cute how he says letter flaps?

Sherri Shepherd: Here it is...

[catcalls and laughter as the magazine is presented.]

Edgar van Scyoc: Can I see that? Thank you -- 

Barbara Walters: What are you doing?

Edgar van Scyoc: Ellis?

Ellis Graveworthy: Thank you, there we are. 

[they both sign the cover and pass it back]

Edgar van Scyoc: Now it's worth _five_ dollars instead of two.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck: So -- you're making pretty light of this.

Ellis Graveworthy: We just both found ourselves rather amused that People Magazine were the last to know. It isn't as though we've been hiding it. We run a company together, for god's sake.

Joy Behar: So you are....

Edgar van Scyoc: Together, yes. 

Joy Behar: You heard it here officially first, folks!

Sherri Shepherd: Are you married?

Edgar van Scyoc: Oh god. Married.

Ellis Graveworthy: No, no no. But yes, we are together, almost -- let's see, six months or something like that.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck: Men. They never remember anniversaries. 

Barbara Walters: And you're really not bothered about your personal business being news-stand gossip?

Ellis Graveworthy: Well, this is marvelous timing, good publicity for us.

Sherri Shepherd: Now come on. You can be truthful with us, just tip us a wink. Was this whole thing staged?

Ellis Graveworthy: Staged?

Whoopi Goldberg: You know, a little set up, some publicity for the show, the article coming out right after this particular episode. 

Edgar van Scyoc: Oh -- no, not at all. We had no idea People was running an article. 

Ellis Graveworthy: It's kind of a shame, we could have called them up and confirmed or denied various rumors they mention.

Joy Behar: Such as? 

Ellis Graveworthy: Oh, such as, long romantic walks after dark. Certainly not, we'd be mugged. And if you'll -- Edgar, stand up, turn around.

Edgar van Scyoc: Oh, we're doing this now?

Ellis Graveworthy: Yes, turn around. There was some talk of a filthy tattoo Edgar had gotten, but you can see -- 

[Edgar van Scyoc pulls his shirt up to show his lower back]

Ellis Graveworthy: Ahh, there we are.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck: Are we going to have to blur anything? 

[laughter; camera focus tightly on a tatto on van Scyoc's back]

Ellis Graveworthy: That's only our company logo. He's a branded man, quite literally. So you see, I suppose they didn't tell us because a lot of interesting lies are rather better entertainment than the truth.

Barbara Walters: What is the truth?

Edgar van Scyoc: Boring. Two people in love, that's all. 

Ellis Graveworthy: All our characters have much more interesting sex lives than we do, frankly.

Edgar van Scyoc: Which is why -- here comes the plug -- you should be watching Torchwood and Doctor Who, Saturday nights starting at eight-seven-central. 

Whoopi Goldberg: All right, there's the plug. 

Joy Behar: When we come back, how to choose a good groomer for your pet!

***

Taken from a daily news post on torchwood_el, Torchwood's major meta, fic, and picspam community:

Off-LJ Links:  
People Magazine has a story on Ellis Graveworthy and Edgar van Scyoc   
**kikura_s** posts hi-res scans of the cover and article.

Discussion and Meta:   
**vanscyocfan** wonders how van Scyoc and Graveworthy's relationship will affect how the shows are viewed  
 **copperbadge** mediates a discussion about sexuality and public image  
 **elevated_fics** community announces the E &E Slashfest  
 **bluejeans07** has a comic about fan reactions to the news

***

DOCTOR WHO 1x17: THE SHAKESPEARE CODE   
_The Doctor has long since given up any pretense of kicking Rose out of the TARDIS, and when Ross comes aboard he simply sighs and asks where in time or space they'd like to go. The young Lieutenant, surprisingly, asks to see Shakespeare, and the Doctor obliges by taking him to see it in its original time -- but something's rotten in London, where a trio of witches are trying to use Love's Labors Won for their own purposes. Can the trio save the day against forces supernatural, and keep Will Shakespeare out of trouble at the same time?_

Title: Hallo Spaceboy  
By: **mmk_mmk**  
Rating: PG-13  
Summary: How do you dress a soldier for freewheeling adventures in space?   
Author's Notes: Ross's dramatic but clever little change of clothing got me thinking about who helped dress him when he got to the TARDIS. 

"Not that."

"Why not this? I like jeans."

"Not those jeans."

"Rose, I don't get why -- "

"Flared jeans, Lieutenant?"

"You can call me Ross. Are they flared?"

"Yeah. Take 'em off."

"Okay, what about this?"

"You don't really do the James Dean thing well. Red's not your color."

"I always looked good in yellow."

"You can't wear your beret everywhere."

"I could if I wanted. You wear those shoes."

"What's wrong with my shoes?"

"Uh. Nothing. Are these shirts sorted by...anything?"

"This is the TARDIS. Chaos is king."

"I guess you get used to it."

"Mmm, not really. That's why they call it chaos."

"That was either really deep or a total blow-off, Rose."

"I like to keep people guessing. Oh, hey, that looks nice."

"What, the brown pants?"

"Yeah."

"They're a little...tight. In places they shouldn't be."

"Maybe the TARDIS really likes you."

"Can it hear what I'm thinking?"

"Sorta."

"So. Hello, TARDIS. I'm Ross Jenkins. Can I have some hard-wearing shoes for running in? Thanks."

"You're a dork, Ross."

"Cut me some slack, I'm new at this. I never was any good at shopping."

"You just need to find a look. Soldier boy is so last year. You want to be...a spaceboy."

"No silver foil. I mean it."

"Something classic. Something that'll fit in anywhere. Doctor, come help Ross dress himself."

"Ah! Doctor!"

"You don't have to salute, Ross. The pair of you are complete amateurs. Here. Trousers, nice and roomy, warm socks, you need good socks -- looks like you asked for some shoes?"

"Yeah, I -- "

"Shirt...canary yellow, just a touch will show through. Waistcoat, suit coat, nice deep grey color to go with the trousers...no hat I think...well, put them on."

"Uh, can you...not look?"

"Oh -- right, twenty-first century human. I do know how to pick them."

"Doctor, be nice."

"I'm always nice. How's it going, Ross?"

"Okay, you can turn around now."

"He looks good, Doctor. Kind of like your less-fashionable younger brother."

"Like my what?"

"Never mind. Ross?"

"It's...cool. Yeah."

"And if you're a very good human, in a few years you'll have earned yourself a hat. Now, are we ready to confront the Elizabethans and emerge victorious?"

"Lead the way, fashionista."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the Torchwood and Doctor Who seasons drawing to a close, we find Torchwood crossing dimensions and picking up stray physicists, while the Doctor, Rose, and Ross battle fire monsters in ancient Pompeii. Tosh has some new information to consider after meeting an alternate-universe Owen, and Professor Arthur Yana may be more than he appears...

TORCHWOOD 2x18: THE UNTOUCHABLES   
_An early-morning earthquake in Chicago leaves everyone unsettled but unharmed -- except for Torchwood's beloved Hub, which has lost power and cameras on a major subsection. The team investigate together, but when they return topside they find doubles of themselves already there. Can their parallel-world selves get them back home before the rift inside the Hub closes? One man may hold the key -- Professor Yana (played by Derek Jacobi), a brilliant physicist who died in Torchwood's timeline but lives on in this parallel world._

Tosh was the first one back to the atrium sublevel after the investigation; Tommy was staying down to work on the wiring, Owen and Ian had uncovered some kind of fungi growing on the Hub walls and were taking samples for analysis, and Jack and Gwen were inspecting the minor earthquake damage to the gun room. Someone had to monitor the Rift and truth be told Tosh didn't mind much; the Hub was sort of...nice, when it was empty. 

She was halfway to her desk when a soft beeping noise from Ian's computer station stopped her; curious, she leaned in to study the readout below the anomaly-alert. 

Which was when something cold and round pressed against the back of her head, and there was the click of a trigger-hammer being drawn back.

"Don't move," said a voice.

Ian's voice.

Tosh went very still. 

"Hands up," he continued. She raised her hands.

"Ian -- " she started, and there was a slight shove against her head. 

"I don't know who you are," Ian said, and she could hear him stepping backwards -- good boy, always keep some distance between the gun and your prisoner -- "but you picked the wrong woman to impersonate."

Tosh didn't turn around. "Ian, it's me. Tosh."

"Toshiko Sato is dead. Turn around."

Tosh turned and blinked -- she was sure Ian had been wearing a grey suit with a white shirt that morning, not a black suit with a pink shirt. 

"Show yourself," Ian said. 

Tosh was opening her mouth to protest when she looked past Ian and saw...

Ian, entering through the corridor to the lower levels. The man holding the gun on her looked to the side just as Ian -- her Ian -- drew his sidearm and fixed it on him.

"Drop the gun!" they shouted in unison.

"Ian?" Tosh asked.

"You all right, Tosh?"

"JACK!" the Ian in front of her shouted.

"What, I'm right -- Ian?" Jack asked, appearing next to the Ian in the entryway. 

"Jack?" pink-shirt-Ian asked. 

"Ian?" someone called from the balcony.

"Jack!" pink-shirt-Ian called back.

Jack -- another Jack -- was standing on the balcony. "Tosh?" he asked, incredulous. 

"Jack," Tosh's Ian said quietly, nodding at the other Jack.

"Jack, I don't -- whoa," Owen said, appearing behind Ian in the corridor. "Uh, Ian?"

" _Owen?_ " the Ian in front of her demanded.

Owen waved. "Hi."

"Ladies, gentlemen," a voice boomed over the speakers. "Let's all put the guns down, all right?"

"Owen..." the Jack on the balcony called to the air. 

"Working on it, Jack," the voice answered. 

"Captain Harkness," Tosh's Jack called, from the doorway. "We've got two more people coming. Temporary truce? I'd rather they weren't shot accidentally."

"Captain Harkness," the other Jack replied. "Mind if we disarm you?" 

"Let's get Tosh out of the crossfire first," Jack said. The other Jack nodded to the Ian in front of her, who eased the safety on and holstered the gun. "Thank you," he added.

"Sir," Ian said. 

"Okay, rule one," the Jack on the balcony said. "Nobody touch anybody else. I'm not having a hole ripped in the wall between universes. Who else do you have coming, Captain?"

"Gwen and Tommy," Jack answered. 

"We've got a Gwen running around too -- "

"Got her," Owen's voice over the speakers.

"Is that how I sounded?" Owen asked Ian.

"No, you had more attitude," Ian replied. 

"I've located two Gwens, one coming from the firing range, one coming down in the elevator. I'm assuming ours is in the elevator. And...there we are...Tommy Sato is behind you," Owen continued. The little gang in the entryway turned.

"Are we standing in the doorway for a _holy crap_ ," Tommy said, catching sight of Ian standing near Tosh. He glanced at the Ian standing next to him. 

"Cloning machine?" he asked. Ian cast his eyes over to where the second Jack was standing. "Cloning machine run amok?"

The other Jack sauntered over, hands in his pockets, and Tosh stood still as she watched Ian locate a tray and follow him. 

The two Captain Harknesses studied each other for a good solid minute.

"So, I'm thinking, the earthquake this morning?" one of them said.

"Did you lose cameras in the sublevels?"

"No, we had no damage."

"Gentlemen," the other Ian said. "Weapons, please."

He held out the tray. Tosh fought hysterical giggles as her Ian eyed the other one. 

"You're a dick in every universe," Owen said to Ian, placing his sidearm on the tray. Tommy followed suit. 

"Apparently, so am I," said the speakers, as Jack placed his weapon on the tray without breaking his staring-contest with himself. 

"Somebody run back and get Gwen," Jack said finally, glancing at Tommy. "Let her know we're having some staffing issues and would appreciate her presence."

"Holy mother of _god_ ," said a new voice. The other Jack stiffened.

"And that'll be our Gwen," he sighed. "All right, everyone in the conference room. Ian -- "

"Yes?" both Ians said in unison. Tosh's Jack looked slightly betrayed.

"O...kay. Uh. Everyone but Ian and...Ian, conference room. You two, coffee, and...have a...chat or something," Jack said. "Remember, no touching."

Ian looked to Jack for permission before following his double to the coffee machine. 

"After you," the other Jack said, gesturing for Jack to precede him. 

Tommy grabbed her hand and held it tightly as they went up the stairs to the conference room.

***

Transcript from the Torchwood Season Two DVD Extras: Cut Scene, "Ian And Ian":

Two Ians are standing in front of the coffee machine, looking contemplative. Ian #1, our Ian, has his hands in his pockets. Ian #2, the parallel-world Ian, straightens his tie. 

Ian #1: So.   
Ian #2: They're all going to be freaking out up there.  
Ian #1: Are you freaking out?  
Ian #2: Not as much as I thought I would.  
Ian #1: Me neither.   
Ian #2: Jack's going to suggest a threesome.   
Ian #1: Probably a foursome.  
Ian #2: Are you thinking lattes, maybe?  
Ian #1: I was thinking, with cinnamon.  
Ian #2: I have some banana bread we could bring up.  
Ian #1: Tosh is allergic to bananas.   
Ian #2: Oh. That's right.   
Ian #1: Your Tosh is dead, isn't she.  
Ian #2: Tosh and Tommy.

There is a long pause.

Ian #1: I'll make the coffee. You steam the milk.

***

When Owen had been a part of the Hub, once in a while he used to pop things up on Tosh's computer screens -- nothing invasive, Jack had made him promise not to access anyone's private files, but just little message windows to say hello, or funny images he'd picked up trawling through the internet with some of his spare processing speed. She hadn't really ever thought about whether he'd done the same for the rest of the team -- Gwen, probably, and maybe Tommy -- but it was sad and a little bittersweet that the Owen in this world still did it. 

The grey text-chat box on the borrowed computer she was using read _Knock knock._

She smiled and typed a reply. _Who's there?_

_I actually don't have a joke,_ Owen answered. 

_All that processing speed and none of it reserved for puerile humor?_

_Bonus points for good use of the word puerile,_ Owen said. _Listen, Tosh, I need to tell you something._

_Fire away. I'm not working on anything important like getting us home before we're stuck here forever._

_I know, I know._ Another window popped up on her screen; CCTV live-feed of Owen, doing a physical inspection of the morgue. _Here's the thing. I never got the chance to tell you when you were alive, the you from this world. Which, tactless opening._

_Just a little,_ she typed.

_And then I got stuck in the Hub. He's checking me out, by the way,_ Owen added, as the Owen on the screen peered into a cryo unit. _So what was the point? But here's the thing, Tosh, and I know it's true for him too because I know myself. I'm in love with you. Or, he is._

Tosh stared at the screen, blood rushing to her face.

_That's not funny, Owen._

_I'm not laughing. He'll never tell you, but I haven't got anything to lose. When you go you'll be dead, again. So I might as well make sure that you know in at least one universe. I chickened out enough when you were alive, and this time he can't even blame himself if you know. So, there you are. I'm in love with you. I have been for years._

"Tosh!" Jack called -- she wasn't sure which one. "How are those calculations coming?"

"Almost done," she called back, minimizing the CCTV window hastily. 

"Come on, Tosh, pick it up," Owen said, emerging from the morgue. "Slacker."

He grinned teasingly, like he always did; Tosh managed a weak smile in return, and bent to her calculations. Math was predictable and reassuring, and usually Owen was too. 

While the program compiled, she glanced at him under pretense of checking her notes. He was bickering with both Ians at once, a feat only Owen could pull off. He must have caught her looking out of the corner of his eye; he turned to her, dropped her a wink, and went back to harassing the Ians. 

Eventually, however, even Ian got bored and wandered off; Owen came to sit next to her, studying the scrolling numbers on the screen, feet propped up on her desk. 

"You know, I think of them as Our Jack and Their Jack, Our Gwen and Their Gwen, and there's Me and Other Me, but both Ians are just Ian. It's like he's totally interchangeable. Is that weird?"

"Yes," she answered absently.

"Well, call me weird then." 

When she didn't reply, he poked her. "Tosh. You didn't call me weird."

"Hm?" she asked. 

"Are you all right, Tosh?"

"Yes, I'm fine -- " she bit her lip. "You're distracting me, Owen."

"That's what I do," he agreed.

"Go -- get me some tea or something."

"Get your own tea."

Tosh rested her head against the monitor's casing. A little window popped up.

_I never said I was easy,_ Owen said. She closed it. 

"Owen, please get me some tea," she said quietly.

Owen swung his feet down and stood up, squeezing her shoulder as he passed. "Genius in any world," he called back. "You'll get it!"

_If it's any consolation, I'm almost certain that I'm worth it,_ Owen said apologetically.

Before she could reply, the rolldoor alarms went off and everyone looked up; when the cage opened an elderly man wandered through, his nose in a large binder, apparently oblivious to his surroundings.

"Jack, I've been looking over these figures and I really can't -- " he said, before he looked up and realized anything was wrong. Tosh saw Jack's jaw drop. She thought it was her Jack, but it was hard to be sure.

"Professor, I've told you about wandering in unannounced," the other Jack said sternly. 

"Well, then you shouldn't have given me a key," the Professor said cheerfully. He turned to Tosh and smiled. "Good afternoon, miss. Professor Arthur Yana -- "

"Don't touch her!" Jack barked. The other Jack was still staring.

"Arthur?" he asked, moving forward. The Professor took in the pair of Jacks and frowned.

"Well, this can't be good," he said. 

"Professor -- " Jack held up a hand and then stopped himself short. He turned to his counterpart. "You brought him _here?_ "

"Tosh and Tommy were dead," the other man said. "I needed someone brilliant. I didn't have a choice. You look like -- "

"He's dead in my timeline," Jack said, turning back to the Professor. "Dead fifteen years and more. I really want to hug you right now."

"You know him, Jack?" Tosh heard herself ask. Jack was still staring longingly at the Professor. 

"Oh yes," he said quietly. 

***

From the Torchwood Quotes File, part of The Unofficial Torchwood Fansite:

Yana: It's been common belief for a long time that when parallel worlds are formed it's because of some branching that took place at a particular point -- for example, in one world Toshiko Sato lives, in another she dies. But it's more than that. Little tiny fissures are always appearing in time. Why did Toshiko Sato live in one world and die in another? What happened previous to that to bring it about? My death in your world is obviously not enough to have branched it significantly; to your timeline, you and your brother's deaths are what actually created the fracture. But I died fifteen years before that, so clearly the small differences have been creeping in for some time. It's not true that parallel worlds exist for every second and every decision. They only have the potential to exist. To step through from one into the next, there has to have been a fairly significant branch, with a lot of small changes leading up to it. Your death and your brother's death, in this world, are what allow it -- and thus me -- to exist. 

Jack: Arthur Yana is one of the great minds of humanity. In any century.  
Ian: His death must have had more effect, then. Things must be pretty significantly different in this world.  
Jack: His genius was in his ability to teach, really. I imagine...his students carried on his work competently. They would have been able to follow his footsteps; he was that kind of man. He could make you feel smarter than you were, faster, he made you work harder.  
Ian: Were you in love with him?  
Jack: Ever had a crush on a teacher?  
Ian: [looking at Jack significantly] Yes.

***

Because Torchwood could never do anything by halves, especially when they were doubled-up, the race to build a stabilizer for the interdimensional rift fissure came down to the final minutes; Jack wasn't sure he was going to be able to get his people home, and the thought filled him with panic. Seeing himself in another world was hard enough, but having to abandon Torchwood because another him had already laid claim to it...he could look after Tosh and Tommy, Owen and Gwen and Ian, but they would never fully belong in this world. 

The sense of relief he felt as he stepped through the Rift, back into his own world, was almost physical. It must have been intense for Owen; he came through leaning heavily on Tommy's shoulder, and Ian caught him before he could fall down. Gwen looked shaken and exhausted; Tosh, who has been oddly abstracted practically since they'd arrived, allowed Ian to help her to a chair and bring her a glass of water. 

"Rift closing," Jack called out, watching the undulating light collapsing in on itself. "We'll be sealed off back again in three...two...one..."

There was a violent flash of light as the hole between worlds shut down, but just before it closed another shape came hurtling through, landing hard and rolling to pull his legs through at the last possible moment. There was the smell of singed wool as the figure sat up, coughed, and began to dust himself off. 

"Well," said Professor Yana. "That was exciting, wasn't it?"

Jack stared. "Arthur -- "

"Yes, I know, I know, but it's perfectly safe," the Professor said, hoisting himself up. Tommy grabbed one of his elbows without thinking and helped haul him to his feet. "See? The hole's sealed."

"Yeah, with you on the wrong side of it!" Jack replied.

"Nonsense. I know I'm dead in this world; I was bored of the other one." The Professor beamed at them. "Why not try a new one?"

"Why not..." Ian echoed incredulously.

"Well, certainly. How could I pass up the chance to explore an entirely new universe? I'm an old man, most of my friends were dead, I had no reason to stay. This is something new!" the Professor looked around him in excitement. 

"But..." Jack couldn't think of a good argument, which was really annoying. Arthur came forward and Jack realised that finally, finally he could touch him. He threw his arms around him and let Yana laugh into his shoulder, rub his back reassuringly.

"There's a little of the devil in me, you know," he said, stepping back to straighten Jack's collar. Jack glanced at Ian, who was looking annoyed. "You know the old saw, Jack. _I cannot rest from travel; I will drink life to the lees..._ "

Jack rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Talking of," he said with a sigh, "Ian?"

"Coffee," Ian said, hurrying off. The Professor reached into his pocket and took out an antique watch, glancing at Jack.

"You were buried with that," Jack said pointedly.

"Well, it's a good thing I've brought this one, then. What time is it? Locally?"

"Five in the evening," Tosh replied, and then giggled. "In this version of reality, anyway..."

Her laughter was infectious; Owen started next and then it jumped to Tommy and Gwen, so that by the time Ian returned with a carafe of coffee even Jack was chuckling. 

"All right, Ulysses," he said, clapping the Professor on the shoulder. "We'll find you someplace to stay for tonight."

"Lead on, Telemachus," the Professor said cheerfully.

***

Transcript from the Season Two DVD Extras: Cut Scene, "Tennyson Recital":

Professor Yana is standing on the Plaza, staring up at the Picasso sculpture. Jack is leaning on a pillar nearby. 

**Yana** : There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:  
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,  
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me —  
That ever with a frolic welcome took  
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed  
Free hearts, free foreheads —   
**Jack** : you and I are old;  
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;  
Death closes all: but something ere the end,  
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,  
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.  
 **Yana** : It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:  
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,  
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew  
 **Jack and Yana in unison** : Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though  
We are not now that strength which in old days  
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;  
One equal temper of heroic hearts,  
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will  
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

***

torchwood_el special post-episode edition for The Untouchables:

**Discussion and Meta:**

torchwoodians has a shot-by-shot interpretation of Tosh's reaction to Owen  
poisonivy29 is outraged at Owen's behavior  
kinkocopier can't stop laughing at Ian  
copperbadge has a macro reinterpretation of the episode

**Episode coda fanfic:**

THE EDUCATION OF CAPTAIN JACK by kid_sato | (Jack/Yana one-sided, PG) | Summary: Jack gets schooled. 

CONSIDERATIONS by toshs_gfriend | (Tosh, Owen, PG) | Summary: Tosh works through what she thinks and feels about Owen. 

FALL IN by moby_kick | (Tosh/Owen, R) | Summary: "You told me you loved me." "No I didn't." "The other you."

PAIR OF JACKS by mmk_mmk | (Jack/Ian/Jack, NC-17) | Summary: Jack, the universal constant, discovered he could touch others without ripping a hole in space. After which, he did what came naturally.

ARTHUR'S KNIGHT by vanscyocfan | (Jack/Yana, R) | Summary: What do you do when your decades-dead lover is suddenly alive again? Featuring flashback!Jack and young!Professor!Yana. 

POUR OUT A FORTY by jekyllpark | (Tosh/Owen, Tommy, Ian, Gwen) | Summary: Tosh and Tommy visit their own graves and Ian always has the appropriate equipment for any job, even an impromptu memorial service. (Comedy, no angst)

**General Fanfic:**

AMPERSAND by hija_paloma | (Edgar van Scyoc/Ellis Graveworthy, PG-13) | Summary: Somehow, Edgar realized, he'd stopped seeing Ellis as his head writer and started seeing him as his boyfriend long before he even entertained the idea of kissing him. 

***

"Oh, my god," Edgar said.

"What? What's happened?" Ellis looked up from the latest draft of the script, across the room to where Edgar was wasting time on the internet.

"I'm reading the reactions to the show," Edgar said.

"Have they any idea about Yana?"

"A few people think he's evil. That's not the point."

"All right, what's got you twisted up?"

"Did you know they were writing porn about us?" Edgar demanded.

Ellis looked at his stricken face, still staring at the computer screen in front of him, and burst into laughter.

"You knew!" Edgar accused.

"Yes, dear man, I knew. I find it flattering that they think so highly of my prowess, but on the other hand I'm quite certain that you are not that flexible."

" _Oh my god_ , Ellis!"

"That's not the worst part."

"There's _worse_?"

"You've not stumbled across the stories about David and John, yet, have you."

" _David Tennant and John Barrowman?_ "

"Told you there was worse."

"The world would end!"

***

DOCTOR WHO 1x18: FIRES OF POMPEII   
_It's Rose's turn to choose where they travel, and her selection is Rose all over: the Roman Empire at the height of its decadent rise. When they end up in Pompeii, however, on the day before a volcanic eruption that will destroy the city, Rose and Ross must face up to the fact that they can't change history -- and the Doctor must make a decision between his principles as a Time Lord and his feelings as a man._

TORCHWOOD 2x19: A GREATER UNDERSTANDING  
 _Torchwood's agents are slowly adjusting to a new presence among their numbers: Professor Yana, who has a passion for exploration and a genius for intuitive deduction. Some of his experiments with the Torchwood supercomputer and Owen's consciousness in it, however, make Owen and Tosh extremely nervous. Distracted by her own doubts about Owen, Tosh isn't sure whether either of them are seeing things clearly, but when the Professor begins to revive some of his old theorems and test them at the Hub, they have to find a way to make Jack believe them -- before Professor Yana destroys them all._

Excerpt from the shooting script for Episode 2x19: A Greater Understanding  
Story by: Edgar van Scyoc  
Teleplay by: Ellis Graveworthy  
Directed by: Edgar van Scyoc

INT - HUB - AFTERNOON

IAN is tidying up his desk, obviously preparing to leave. GWEN approaches with a coffee mug and places it in the sink. 

IAN  
Thanks. Are you knocking off?

GWEN  
Unless you think I'll be needed.

IAN  
Rift seems quiet, and Tosh said she'd keep an eye on it this evening. Keep your cell handy, but I think you can sneak away.

GWEN  
Jack said he had plans tonight -- are you going home too?

IAN  
I think I'm the plans. It's good to get him out of the Hub once in a while.

GWEN  
Oh, is that all it is.

IAN  
Well, it's part of a system Jack has. 

GWEN  
Feeding you up?

IAN  
Proving his monogamy.

GWEN  
[chokes on her coffee]  
What?

IAN  
[resigned]  
He said he knew I didn't like the Professor, and I asked if there was a reason, and he said he could be monogamous, and I said I was sure he could try, and he said he'd done it before and we got into it and it ended with the System.

GWEN  
The System to prove he can commit to one person.

IAN  
Which apparently involves feeding me, mostly. Not that I'm going to say no to dinner at the Grand Lux. 

GWEN  
I'm not sure I see the link.

IAN  
That's because there isn't one. It's just hard to prove a negative. So...food. For Jack, it's a reasonably acceptable leap of logic. 

GWEN  
Does he think you don't trust him?

IAN  
I...I'm not sure I trust his attempts to change his personality, if that's what it is. I don't want that. I don't know what he thinks. A lot of the time. Most of the time. If not all.   
[pause]  
I'm a very confused person, in fact.

GWEN  
If he asked you to marry him today, what would you do?

IAN  
Weep and flee, probably.

GWEN  
It's not just Jack's problem, huh?

IAN  
Nope. We'll get there, one way or another. Or I'll die first.

Gwen  
Ian!

IAN  
Practical consideration, Gwen. 

GWEN  
All this brought on by the Professor.

IAN  
I don't have any reason not to like him. It's just a gut instinct. And I'm trying to ignore it.

GWEN  
You have plenty of reasons not to like him.

IAN  
Well, share 'em, then. I could use some concrete facts to back up my baser instincts.

GWEN  
He crossed worlds when he knew the problems it might cause. We don't know anything about him except that Jack trusts him, but Jack doesn't know what's happened to him in the last fifteen years. He remembers things that never happened.  
[beat]  
And you saw the way Jack looked at him the first time.

IAN  
Yes. I did. But technically the Professor has prior claim.

GWEN  
Jack's not a country you plant your flag in, Ian.  
[IAN gives her a filthy grin]  
You know what I meant.

IAN  
Yeah. Anyway -- 

JACK  
IAN! 

IAN  
[dry]  
His Master's Voice.   
[To GWEN's surprise, he hugs her]  
I'll see you tomorrow.

JACK appears in the doorway, grinning.

JACK  
Ready?

IAN  
Always.

JACK winks at GWEN as IAN pulls his coat on. They exit together, JACK casually slipping his arm around IAN's waist. 

GWEN turns back to the Hub to see PROFESSOR YANA watching her. He quickly looks down at a readout in front of him.

***

"So," Ellis said, sitting down at the picnic table laden with sandwiches filched from the Craft Services table, "you were right."

"I'm always right," Burn said with a grin. "What was I right about?"

"Owen and Tosh in the new script. It needed a deeper dig."

Burn frowned. "You know I was just saying that because I was annoyed I didn't get any juicy scenes in this one, right?"

"Yes, but in this case your egotism has borne brilliant fruit. I am a genius, and here is your monologue."

He put the paper down on the table and beamed at Edgar, sitting next to him. Eugenia leaned over Burn's shoulder as he studied it. 

"I'm going to have to mark it to give myself breathing pauses," he said. 

"We'll do cuts," Edgar answered.

"No, it has to be one long shot," Ellis replied. "For full effect."

Eugenia laughed. "Have you shown this to Hikki yet?"

"Nope. Go on, Burn, give us a rendering," Ellis said. 

Burn cleared his throat and sat back, picking up the paper. "You be Tosh."

"Okay."

"Listen, did I accidentally spit in your coffee or something?" Burn said, in Owen's pugnacious New York accent. "You've been avoiding me for three days."

"I haven't been avoiding you. There was a lot to catch up on."

"Which is why you went out for coffee with Gwen yesterday after blowing me off."

"Owen, I didn't blow you off -- "

"And I want to know why, because I think with maybe the exception of baiting Ian, which is nothing new and I kind of think he enjoys it, that I've been very well behaved. And I can't think of a single reason you would be mad at me, so either it's something I didn't do or something the other Owen in another world did, which is pretty unfair, Tosh, or you suspect me of having some kind of contagious disease. I mean, are you creeped out by me or something? Wait -- is that why? I creep you out? The only reason I can think I would -- oh my god, you know, don't you. Someone -- did that bastard me in the other universe tell you I cared about you? Because, of course I do, you're my friend, but he doesn't know me, we're not the same person. I specifically haven't told you before now because I knew it would creep you out and I think we've got a really good friend thing going. Which is all I want, but that doesn't make me pathetic, I've thought a lot about this -- and maybe that does make me a little pathetic, but the point is I'd rather be friends than all this awkwardness that always comes from relationships. I don't know if you've noticed but I do suck at them, a lot, so you shouldn't have to be my trial run at making it work, that's not fair to you or me. Except now that you know, it does make me look sort of sad that I'm not doing anything. The one good piece of advice my mother ever gave me was carpe diem -- not that I have mother issues, I'm just saying, she said that and it stuck with me, and so. I could man up and ask you out, and -- you know what, that's a great idea, actually, because then if you say no it's done with, we'll just go on like we have been, and if you say yes, I mean. That would. Be nice. So. This is me, manning up. Tosh, do you want to have dinner with me?"

By the end of the monologue Edgar had his head pillowed on his arms, laughing almost too hard to breathe. Ellis beamed.

"This. Is. Brilliant," Burn said. 

"Oh my god," Edgar gasped. "It's like a summary of the only thoughts I had my entire high school career."

"What does Tosh say, though?" Eugenia asked.

"Nothing -- she just stares at him, and that's when the rift manipulator alarm blows," Ellis replied.

"You're a sadist, Ellis."

"I'm a writer."

"Are you going to change it up, or can I start working on it?" Burn asked. 

"Go to, my son," Ellis said gravely. 

***

Sam's Three Things About Torchwood, spoilers for episode 2.19: Mother Always Told Me, Carpe Diem

~~1\. OH MY GOD.~~

~~2\. OH MY GOD WHAT.~~

~~3\. WHAT, OH MY GOD.~~

1\. Ahem. This was like a science-fiction-genre episode that somehow got a romantic comedy dropped into the middle of it. With Jack having a plan whose only components are "dinner" and "not being an asshole" and Owen's monologue to Tosh and then, WHAM, Professor Yana opens the Rift. WHAT.

2\. I sort of like that Yana has the best of intentions as he goes criminally insane, because you get the sense that he really does just want to find out more about how the universe exists, but now that he hasn't got Owen-inna-Hub to help him he has to rely on his own programming. And while he is a genius he's messing with stuff he doesn't understand, but like most geniuses he has a hard time admitting error. So when they try to stop him he goes a little off the rails and then -- 

3\. Wait, what? Professor Yana is a _Time Lord_? WHAT OH MY GOD WHAT. Is he? Did he have some kind of magic...thing? Because it looked to me like his pocketwatch got smashed and then he started to regenerate, which makes no sense. And didn't the Doctor say he'd know if any Time Lords had survived the Time War? AND THEN THE EPISODE ENDED AND THE PREVIEW IS ENIGMATIC WHAT THE HELL. 

3a. I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that Burn Gorman ripped that monologue up like fire. He just kept talking, and it just kept getting funnier and sadder at the same time.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Torchwood is prepared to confront the man who was Professor Arthur Yana, now revealed to be a Time Lord bent on dominating Earth as his first step towards the stars. They have never needed the Doctor's help more than they do now, but the Doctor is in hiding as a human, with only Ross and Rose to protect him from a race of ruthless hunters. Behind the scenes, Edgar and Ellis receive a very surprising visitor, and Edgar makes a decision about his relationship with his head writer.

Transcript from the Doctor Who Season One DVD Extras, "Summertime":

John Barrowman and Gareth David-Lloyd are standing in a field in full early-20th-century costume; behind them, various crewmembers move about and Edgar van Scyoc is seen briefly. John leans in close to the camera and grins.

John: Welcome to pollen central, population: us. We've had to stop filming because the _clouds of pollen_ are obscuring the vistas.  
Gareth: Back there [waves behind him] you can see our fearless leader, Edgar van Scyoc, mainlining antihistamines.  
John: So we thought we'd entertain...you!

John straightens up and both men face the camera. John hums and Gareth matches the note. Both bob their heads in time to the rhythm John sets.

John: Two, three, four.

John and Gareth in unison:  
Summertime  
And the living is easy.  
Fish are jumpin'  
And the cotton is high --

John: -- The cotton is high -- 

John and Gareth:  
Well your daddy's rich  
And your ma is good lookin'  
So hush little baby  
Don't you cry...

In the background, quite clearly, Edgar van Scyoc is heard sneezing. John and Gareth burst into laughter. 

Edgar van Scyoc: [distantly] IT ISN'T FUNNY.

***

DOCTOR WHO 1x19: HUMAN NATURE  
 _Doctor John Smith, professor of mathematics at the elite Briar Rose Boarding School for Girls outside of Chicago, is continually plagued with supernatural dreams. His only confidantes are Rose, a young and headstrong serving-girl, and Professor Jenkins, the sports instructor and, John assumes, his rival for Rose's affections. In the shadow of the impending world war, Briar Rose Boarding School is a haven for young women of class and sophistication -- and also perhaps a shelter for a gang of bloodthirsty killers. Now Ross and Rose must protect the Doctor not only from those who are hunting him, but from himself -- a suddenly human self, who has little of the Doctor's brilliance but all of his penchant for getting into trouble._

"How is Himself tonight?" Ross asked, sitting on the steps outside the kitchen entrance of the school. Rose dropped down next to him with a sigh and rested her head on his shoulder for a moment before pulling back (it didn't do to show too familiar with the teachers). 

"Same as always," she replied, smoothing her skirt out. "Always writing in his little book, talking a lot of crap while he drinks his coffee. You know when I signed on for the TARDIS, kitchen duty wasn't exactly what I had in mind."

"I dunno," Ross said, leaning back. "It's kind of...peaceful."

"You say that because you don't have to scrub floors tomorrow."

"Skive off. I'll give you a note," he grinned. She smiled at him. "It is, though. It's quiet here. It's a nice breather."

"Except for the feeling of impending doom I get every time I look at him."

"He said the hunters would die soon enough. When we got here they were about an inch from our heels. If they could find him they would have done by now. The TARDIS is safe, and so is he; only two more weeks before we can open the Chameleon Arch and get him back. In the meantime, look at where we are, Rose," he said, swinging one hand across the wide Illinois prairie, ending on the smudge in the distance that was Chicago. "It's beautiful here."

"No TV, no internet -- "

" -- no bills, no running for your life -- "

" -- no electric dishwashers, and no pop music." She sighed. "I know. It's nice to stick around in one place for a couple of weeks but I want to go home."

"To our time?"

"To the TARDIS."

Ross nodded. He was silent for a long while, until finally he sat up again.

"My dad's PDA died today. Couldn't hold a charge any longer -- I can't charge it again until we're home. Not that I've been using it, but sometimes it was...nice. What he wrote, about you and the Doctor, it wasn't all bad. I liked reading it." He drew a deep breath. "Will you tell me about him, Rose?"

"Like what?"

"Something. Anything really, I'm not picky. I only knew him for a few days. Tell me about some...time you had an adventure."

Rose thought for a moment and then nodded. "When we started, one of the first places we went was the end of the world. There was this observation platform, perched over the Earth, and we were about to see our own sun go supernova. I think he thought it'd scare us..."

***

John had only come down to the kitchens to try and scare up some cheese and maybe a handful of crackers, but when he heard voices -- Professor Jenkins, it sounded like -- he padded past the stoves and sinks to the scullery at the back, lurking slightly in the shadows. 

There was another voice too, higher and younger -- Rose, the serving girl who'd attached herself to his study and wouldn't allow anyone else to bring him his coffee. Apparently he wasn't the only professor she favored, which was...disappointing, and a little saddening. He liked Rose's spirit, and her visits were often the high point of his day.

Rose and Jenkins, sitting companionably outside the scullery, Rose telling him some kind of story. On one level it was not a good sign for Rose; the professors might take advantage of lonely and willing serving-girls, but they rarely made it serious. On another level, something in John was thoroughly envious of Jenkins' easy way with the young woman. 

If it had been anyone else he might not have listened in, but he was only human, after all. 

"...person who looked _exactly_ like a plant, and she thought your dad and the Doctor were both married to me. They tried to convince her -- "

" -- oh my god! -- " Jenkins said, laughing.

" -- but then she just thought they were married to each other."

"She sounds great."

"She -- was," Rose said, and her voice dipped into sadness. "She died."

"How?"

"The observation platform was sabotaged. Someone had to do a cold-restart of the system to get the shields up before the sun exploded. The Colonel couldn't be there -- he was helping get me out of the solarium -- and she went with the Doctor to the breakers in the base of the ship. She died down there, holding the brake on the ventilation fans so he could step through and shut everything down. That's what he told me later."

"I'm sorry," Jenkins said, but John didn't really hear him; he was back in last night's dream, watching a woman with green skin and a wood-bark shirt trying to hold a giant lever while he ran down a high catwalk towards another lever, one that was important for some reason. Visions of suns exploding and a giant head in a jar flitted across his mind. 

His journal hadn't left his pocket all day, and the dream had only come to him the night before. There wouldn't have been time for Rose to read it, let alone study it enough to turn it into the kind of detailed story she was telling Jenkins. 

"Tell me how he got you out of the solarium," Jenkins said, somewhere in the background, as John ripped the journal open and flicked through it, pacing up and down in the kitchen. There; there was the account of the Amazing Death Of Our Sun, one of seemingly hundreds of adventures he'd dreamed over the course of his time at the school. There was only one constant, a large blue box that somehow meant _safety_ and _home_ , but as he listened to Rose speak and studied the text and the little ink doodles he realised that yes -- he'd seen Rose in some of his dreams, and Professor Jenkins as well. 

"Doctor Smith?" 

He looked up sharply to find Jenkins and Rose standing in the scullery -- Rose smiling at him, as she always did, and Jenkins looking faintly wary, as _he_ so often did. 

"Can I get you anything, professor?" Rose asked. 

"No -- no, no, thank you. I was just going to...get some fresh air," he stammered. Rose glanced at Jenkins; Jenkins gave him a knowing smile and stepped aside. 

Once he was outside, well away from the school, John sat down in the long grass and leaned back, staring up at the sky, breathing heavy with relief. 

He would find out how Rose had known his dream, and what she was doing in them. All of this was highly improbable, but John firmly believed that magic was only mathematics one didn't understand yet. He would puzzle it out.

The pocketwatch in his vest, heated by the sun, sat close to his heart and warmed his skin through the thin fabric until he closed his eyes and let the dreams take him away again.

***

"You wanted to see me, Doctor Smith?" Rose asked, the next afternoon, putting her head through the door of his study.

"Rose. I did. Come on in," he replied, waiting for her to enter and smile at him before he continued. "Please, sit down."

She frowned, but she sat, and he leaned forward over his desk and steepled his fingers. 

"It's not my place to...regulate the staff," he began, searching for the right words. He was terrible with words; that was why numbers were so comforting. "And it's definitely not my job to discipline the junior professors. I'm pretty junior myself. But I'm older than you, and I wanted to pass along a friendly -- a friendly warning."

Her frown deepened.

"I know you've been spending a lot of time with Professor Jenkins," he said, and plowed on before she could say anything. "And I'm glad you've found a friend, and all this old stuff about staff not fraternizing with professors is -- well it's on the way out, and I think that's good. Still, he's young and a little wild."

"Wild," she repeated, with a small smile.

"Yes. I worry he's going to hurt you."

"We're just friends, Doctor Smith."

"I know, I know," he said wretchedly. "But friends can become more -- people can be _pushed_ to become more than friends. I just want you to be aware. He has a lot of power. He could lose you your job if you said no, but if you said yes you could lose your job all the same."

"You have a lot of power over me too."

"But I'm, well, old enough," he said. "To use it wisely -- not to use it, I mean, I'm old enough not to abuse it. Jenkins is very young. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

She watched him for a minute, and then a smile broke over her face. "Are you jealous, Doctor?"

"Jealous! I, no, I'm not jealous, why would I be jealous?" he asked, flustered. 

"You are. You're jealous -- you think Ross -- "

"You see? His first name?"

"You think Professor Jenkins is your rival."

John stared at her, open-mouthed. She reached across and boldly put her hand on top of his.

"Doctor, I want you to listen to me," she said. Her voice had a certain note of command in it, even when she was taking orders from the head of staff, that he often thought spoke of a headstrong upbringing. "I like him. He's my friend. But...you know, love is like...totally...you're first in my heart. Of anyone I've ever met. You're first, Doctor," she said, and made his title somehow sound like his name. "You don't have anything to fear from Ross Jenkins."

He stared at her, heart beating in his chest (and the double-time thump felt somehow familiar too). 

"Do you mean that?" he asked.

"Yeah. But things are just nuts right now, the world is crazy -- "

"The war."

"That, but -- this isn't the time. Now? It's just not the time."

She must have been thinking of his reputation at the school, how he was a first-year professor as well and didn't need a scandal until he'd at least renewed employment for the next year. That was sensible thinking, not that he'd expect less from Rose.

"I think I understand," he murmured. "But -- summer is coming. Soon."

The look she gave him was knowing -- so knowing it implied she knew something he didn't, which was deeply unsettling.

"The summer," she agreed, an edge in her voice. "Then."

"I'm so glad we spoke, Rose," he said, turning his hand over to thread his fingers through hers. 

"Me too," she said. "I should go -- there's cleaning -- "

"Of course. Ah, Rose..." he stood impulsively and took out his pocketwatch. "I want you to keep this."

She stared down at the watch, looking more shocked than he'd expect. 

"As a reminder. Time. You know. Sort of," he said. He held it out to her. "Please, I want you to."

She nodded and took it out of his hand; to his shock, instead of leaving immediately, she tucked it in her pocket and touched his shoulders, tipping his head down so she could kiss his forehead. Like a mother, or a sister.

"Summer is coming soon," she said, the words echoing strangely in his mind, and then she was gone.

Two days later, when he saw her handle a gun for the first time against a gang of invaders who were seemingly invincible and for some reason wanted his blood, he wondered who she really was and how deep he'd gotten himself embroiled in something far beyond his human understanding. 

***

Excerpt from the shooting script for Episode 1x19: Human Nature  
Story by: Ellis Graveworthy  
Teleplay by: Derek Smith and Richard Allen  
Directed by: Edgar van Scyoc

INT - DANCE HALL - NIGHT

THE HUNTERS enter the hall disguised as BAINES, CLARKE, and JENNY. Shrieks and muttering are heard when the crowd in the dance hall sees the guns in their hands. 

CLARKE  
Silence! All of you!

MAN #1  
Mr. Clarke! What's the meaning of this?

CLARKE executes MAN #1 ruthlessly. More shrieks. 

BAINES  
HE ASKED FOR SILENCE!

All fall silent. The DOCTOR wraps a protective arm around ROSE. 

ROSE  
[whispering]  
Let go, Doctor. If they see you with me -- 

JENNY  
That's the one. Professor Jenkins. He's one of the Doctor's companions. I heard him talking. 

In the background, ROSE has managed to get free of the DOCTOR and is standing in front of him. 

BAINES  
Better than that.  
[he sniffs]  
There...is...the Doctor. That's what Professor Jenkins calls you, isn't it, "Professor Smith"? You took human form. How charming.

DOCTOR  
Took human -- I AM human! I was BORN human! Like you! 

BAINES  
And a human brain, too! Simple, thick and dull.

JENNY  
But we need a Time Lord!

BAINES  
That can be arranged.  
[aims his gun at the DOCTOR, who recoils]  
Change back. 

DOCTOR  
I don't know what you're talking about.

BAINES grabs ROSS, who tries to fight him off; if BAINES were human they would be equally matched, but BAINES holds him easily. 

ROSS  
Let me go, you son of a -- 

BAINES  
He's your friend, isn't he, Doctor? Your companion? Scared yet?

DOCTOR  
Stop this, just stop! I don't understand!

JENNY  
Or maybe...  
[grabs ROSE and puts the gun to her head]  
Everyone's been talking, haven't they? About how Professor Smith's in love with one of the serving girls. 

DOCTOR  
Let her go, please. Let them both go. I'll do whatever you want, just let them go.

BAINES  
All you have to do is change back.

DOCTOR  
[anguished]  
I don't know what you're talking about!

BAINES  
Then it's your choice. Answer this. Which one should we kill first? Your best friend -- or your lover? Your choice.

TO BE CONTINUED

***

Edgar was going over financial reports for the end-of-fiscal-year accounting, and Ellis was "helping" by sitting on the office sofa and writing, because Ellis couldn't add two and three to make five, when there was a sudden knock on the door. Whoever was on the other side didn't wait for an invitation before opening it, either. 

Both men looked up; Edgar laid his highlighter down, and Ellis tilted his head.

"Sorry to intrude," said the rangy, auburn-haired man in the doorway. "Edgar van Scyoc?"

"That's me," Edgar said warily. Visions of crazed fans with guns flitted briefly through his head. The door swung wider and a young woman in a leather jacket put her head under the man's arm, peering around curiously. "And you are...?"

"...here to ask a favour," the man said. Edgar glanced at Ellis, who frowned. "Aaaah. This is Ace."

"Hi!" Ace waved cheerfully.

"Something that...belongs to me got tossed in with ah..." the man looked around again. "Props? I think?"

"You think?"

"I need a rummage in your drawers," the man announced. 

There was an amused snort from Ellis. Edgar narrowed his eyes at the man. 

"I'm sorry, I still don't know who you are or how you got past security," he said.

"Was there security?" the man asked Ace. 

"Not that I saw," she answered. Edgar knew that mock-innocent look. He'd used it often enough himself. 

Slowly, he pushed his chair away from the desk.

"Have a go...Doctor," he said. 

The man's face broke into an enormous grin. "I told you he wouldn't fuss," he said to Ace. "She said, you never can tell with parallel universes, and I said..." he began pulling drawers out, combing through them with long, clever fingers, "I said, he'll know who I am. Hi," he added, glancing at Ellis. "Huge fan, Mr. Graveworthy."

Ellis looked smug. 

"Yes, all right, round here somewhere...a-HA!" the Doctor burst out, holding up what looked like one of the dozens of prop Sonic Screwdrivers that the show went through in a season. Edgar had eight or nine in his drawer, to hand out to people as toys. He flicked it and it lit up; all of the prop ones were green, but this one, oddly, glowed blue. "Thanks so much. Brilliant. We'll be out of your hair now. G'bye!"

They disappeared out the door before either man could move. There was half a minute of silence.

"We never, ever talk about this to anyone," Edgar said. 

"Agreed," Ellis replied. 

There was another knock on the door, and both men jumped. It turned out to be Mia, toting a handful of drawings. 

"What, did Hamu-chan get free?" she asked, taking in their pale faces and nervous expressions. 

"No -- why do you ask?" Edgar said, going for casual and missing by a mile.

"No reason. Hey, did you guys have a meeting without me this morning? I just saw some guy who looked like an ad executive walking out with one of your prop Screwdrivers," she said. 

Edgar placed a hand on each shoulder and looked her directly in the eye. 

"Some things are better left a mystery," he said.

"O...kay," she drawled. "Anyway -- drawings?"

***

FROM: E van Scyoc  
TO: El  
SUBJECT: Security Footage

El,

This is the best we'll get, I think. The security cameras outside the office only caught him on a handful of frames, didn't get the girl at all. I ran it up to our design people -- trust me, they're the best we can get with digital imagery without going to the police -- and they cleaned it up. I'm attaching both images. 

I want to believe that this was some guy who pranked us for a laugh, but honestly, El, it feels dishonest to think that. And there are more things in heaven and earth, et cetera. So.

That's the face of our Doctor. I like to think we're doing him a credit, don't you?

EvS

\--  
Edgar van Scyoc  
Executive Producer, Torchwood  
NBC Studios

I'm an absolute beginner and I'm absolutely sane. -- David Bowie

 

***

DOCTOR WHO 1x20: THE FAMILY OF BLOOD  
 _A gang of alien hunters have come for the Doctor, laying siege to the Briar Rose School where Doctor John Smith has been unwittingly in hiding. It's up to him, aided by Professor Ross Jenkins and serving-girl Rose Tyler, to draw the menace away from the school and to defeat them -- but defeating the Family of Blood means giving up his humanity, and losing the precious thing growing between him and Rose. Ross and Rose, meanwhile, are desperate to find the Doctor's missing Chameleon Arch -- a pocketwatch that holds his essence inside it._

The field was as warm as it had been, the day he'd lain among the grass and fallen asleep, but John couldn't seem to warm up. He was frightened; people kept trying to kill him, or his friends, or his students, and a tiny little hysterical corner of his mind also wanted to know when the girls of the Briar Rose school had become quite so adept with handguns. Probably Professor Jenkins' doing; he had all sorts of insane ideas about womens' lib. 

But Rose was with him, which was something; Rose was safe, and he could see Jenkins' progress through the long grass, the stalks waving this way and that as he crawled forward.

"Got it," Jenkins gasped, when he reached them, rolling over onto his back and opening his left hand. The pocketwatch -- the silly old thing he'd given Rose on a whim, and which had been stolen from her -- tumbled to the ground. Rose snatched it up and pressed it into his palm. 

"You have to open it," she said. "That's its purpose. The real you is inside and you need to free it."

"I am the real me," he protested, his voice hushed. "I don't want to be someone else, Rose."

"It's too late -- you already were someone else. Please, just open it!"

"You knew," he murmured. "You knew all the time that I was someone else, but you said -- "

"I wasn't lying," Rose said desperately. Jenkins pushed himself up on his elbows to watch them argue. "But when you left instructions you didn't tell me what to do if -- if you fell in love!"

"It never occurred to me?" John asked, shocked and hurt. "And you want me to become that man again?"

"You have to. You're the only one who can stop them," Ross said, his voice level and even. "John Smith can't stop the Family of Blood any more than I can. But the Doctor..."

"You have a lot of faith in the Doctor," John said bitterly. 

"What, you think I only hung about you because you used to be the Doctor?" Jenkins asked. Rose looked impatiently back and forth between them. "You're him. You're inside him. But you're not all of him. The Doctor is like...fire, and ice, and gravity. He's the storm in the heart of the sun. He's called the Rage of Kings."

"Stop it," John ordered, panicking, because the rhythm of Jenkins's voice was soothing, and he found himself wanting to open the watch. 

"He's ancient and forever. He can see the turn of the universe," Jenkins declared.

"Stop!"

"He's the reason I exist," Jenkins continued inexorably. "Father, brother, hero -- he walks as a god on a thousand planets."

"I can give them the watch," John said desperately. "That's all they want. They can leave, I can stay like this."

"You'll make them immortal," Jenkins said. "Do you want that?"

"I just want them to leave me alone. Rose -- if I give them the watch we can stay here, together."

Rose lifted her head and the sunlight caught her eyes, turning her skin to gold.

"No," she said. "We can't. If you stay, you're not the man I'd stay for."

John glanced at Jenkins, who had adopted a casual attitude, as if none of this mattered in the slightest. And yet his eyes never left John's face. 

_Jenkins is a soldier,_ he thought to himself, surprised at the insight. 

"Who are you to me?" he asked them, clutching the watch tightly.

"We travel with you."

"Why?"

Jenkins glanced at Rose. "Because we chose to."

Doctor John Smith, Professor of Mathematics, made a decision. 

***

Excerpt from the shooting script for Episode 1x20: The Family Of Blood  
Story by: Ellis Graveworthy  
Teleplay by: Anna Jackson  
Directed by: Edgar van Scyoc

INT - TARDIS

ROSE, ROSS, and the DOCTOR walk into the TARDIS; the DOCTOR inhales deeply and smiles.

DOCTOR  
Good old TARDIS. Smells a little musty.

ROSE  
It doesn't, I aired it out every few days.

ROSS  
I aired it out, she sat there and complained about the poor quality of undergarments in the early twentieth century.

ROSE  
[studying her button-up boots]  
Great shoes, though. 

ROSS gives the DOCTOR a long-suffering look. 

DOCTOR  
You both deserve some kind of vacation, I think. Especially for putting up with that idiot I turned into. 

ROSE  
You weren't an idiot. You were sort of sweet. A little pathetic, but...nice.

DOCTOR  
Nice.

ROSS  
Damnation by faint praise. 

ROSE  
[laughing]  
Now I know you're back to normal, when "nice" isn't good enough for you.  
[she kisses his cheek]  
Good to have you back.

DOCTOR  
Yeah. All back the way it was. 

ROSE  
I'm starving, I'm gonna go find something to eat.

DOCTOR  
[calling after her]  
Be thinking about where you want your vacation!

ROSE exits; ROSS fixes the DOCTOR with a knowing look.

ROSS  
Why don't you just tell her you're in love with her? She loves you enough to stay with you. 

DOCTOR  
I can't be that obvious.

ROSS  
No. You're very careful around her. That's how I know. 

DOCTOR  
It doesn't matter.

ROSS  
It does if she makes you happy.

DOCTOR  
Not even then. You're very young, Ross Jenkins. So is she. Your lives are so short. You shouldn't waste them on me; you'll travel with me for a while, but one day you'll go home again. Maybe even the same day you left home. You need meaning in your lives. You can't spend your whole short lives on this.

ROSS  
You think you have no meaning for us?

DOCTOR  
I think I'll live long after Rose is dust and bones. So I can't afford any more love for her than I already feel.

ROSS  
What if I told her?

DOCTOR  
You won't.

ROSS  
Why wouldn't I?

DOCTOR  
Because you know that what I say is the truth.

ROSE wanders back in, eating a granola bar.

ROSE  
We're out of everything. Or it's moldy. This is a time machine, how come things get mold on them?

DOCTOR  
Narrative veracity.

ROSE  
Whatever.

DOCTOR  
[smiling]  
Grocery run? How does the universal marketplace of the bazaar planet Nefi sound?

ROSE  
Sounds great.

DOCTOR  
Then we're off!

EXT - SPACE

Closing shot of the TARDIS, spinning through the Time Vortex. 

BLACKOUT

***

***

TORCHWOOD 2x20: LORDS AND LADIES  
 _Professor Arthur Yana has been revealed as a Time Lord, the only other survivor of the great Time War. With superior intelligence and the ability to manipulate time from inside the Rift, Yana has gone about remaking the history of Earth to suit his own purposes. Only Torchwood, who witnessed his descent into the Rift, are immune; when he brings forces to bear on the team they must find a way to defeat him -- even if it means sending Jack into the Rift itself to fight him. Jack is willing to go, but only one person in Torchwood has been into the Rift rather than through it, and Jack may not be the best man for the job._

Excerpt from the shooting script for Episode 2x20: Lords And Ladies  
Story & Teleplay: Ellis Graveworthy  
Directed by: Ellis Graveworthy

INT - HUB - DAY

JACK  
Oh, my god.

TOMMY  
[joining him at the computer screen]  
What? Oh.

GWEN  
You want to tell us what's freaking you out?

JACK  
Pull up the Rift activity archives.

IAN  
What's going on?

JACK  
Look. Look there. These are archives of Rift activity going back to the founding of Torchwood. Every spike, every time the Rift opens, Torchwood has records. Now watch.

JACK pulls up a very old hand-drawn graph. 

JACK  
This is a jpeg file, a scan of hand-kept records. 

The TEAM crowds around him. Focus on the graph. After a few seconds, a new spike appears.

TOSH  
That's not possible. It's a digital image file.

JACK  
He's rewriting history. 

IAN  
Oh whoa. Heads up. 

JACK  
What is it?

IAN  
Who led the Union in the Civil War?

GWEN  
President Lincoln.

IAN  
Not so much anymore.

He tilts his screen towards them. An image of THE PROFESSOR in a stovepipe hat is onscreen.

JACK  
He's putting himself into history. Building a dynasty.

OWEN  
How do you know?

JACK  
It was done once before. A Time Agent went rogue. He put himself into a planet's history as the founder of civilisation, created a line of descendants -- all him -- to replace their dynasties, made himself supreme ruler of an entire species. It took us three weeks to catch him. We wouldn't have, but he tore open a rift.

IAN  
Is that what's going to happen to ours?

JACK  
Our Rift is old...

TOSH  
If he keeps up he'll overload it. Blowback. 

JACK  
Unless he's not using the Rift for transport.

Silence as JACK looks at the dark, silent Rift Manipulator.

JACK  
He's inside the Rift. 

IAN  
So how come we aren't affected?

JACK  
We're as close to the epicenter as we can be. A few hundred feet in any direction -- people on the surface of the Plaza are probably affected. He's in the Rift.

TOSH  
A Rift we can't close.

OWEN  
No. But we can open it. If he's in there, we open it, reach in, get him out...

JACK  
Now you're talking. Tommy, fire up the supercomputer. Tosh, set up the stabilizers. 

TOSH  
On it!

JACK  
Owen, you'll ride the Rift. 

OWEN  
[elbowing Tommy over to work one of the strange machines on the table]  
Move over, Tommy.

JACK  
Gwen, go to the Armory, open cabinet 112, get the green metal guns you see there. They're timelocked, they'll work inside the Rift. Theroetically. Ian -- 

There is a clank and a clatter as IAN secures one ring of a handcuff around Jack's wrist, the other to a railing.

JACK  
Ian.

IAN  
You're not going into the Rift.

JACK  
Let me go.

IAN  
No.

OWEN  
Ian -- 

IAN  
Don't make me shoot you, Owen.

JACK  
It's the only way, Ian.

IAN  
I know.  
[he turns to GWEN]  
Get the guns. 

JACK  
Ian, I can't die. You can.

IAN  
But I've been in the Rift before. I know how to survive. You don't. I'm the logical choice, Jack.

JACK  
You'll die.

IAN  
No. I'll go in, I'll get him, I'll go to ground. I know how. When the Rift stops flaring you can come after me. 

GWEN runs for the guns as JACK tugs, violently and fruitlessly, on the handcuffs.

JACK  
LET ME GO!

IAN  
No. 

JACK  
Do you know what happens to people who go into the Rift without a manipulator? 

IAN  
Yes.

JACK stops for a moment, shocked by IAN's expression. 

TOMMY  
Manipulator's online.  
[uncertain look]  
Someone's got to go soon.

IAN  
Tosh?

TOSH  
Stabilizers are in place.  
[she looks at Jack]  
It makes sense, Jack.  
[she pushes a button]  
Initialising stability field. 

GWEN returns with the guns. IAN holds out his hands. She hesitates before passing them over.

GWEN  
I'm sorry, Jack. He's right.

IAN holsters the guns and pulls his jacket off.

IAN  
Don't let him come after me. Tosh, are you ready?

TOSH  
Go, Tommy.

TOMMY pushes a button on the side of his keyboard. A glowing golden hole opens in the middle of the HUB. Side shot, IAN in profile. He takes a deep breath and steps through; the Rift is paper-thin, but he doesn't step out the other side. 

TOSH  
Rift stability is holding.

JACK screams in rage. OWEN, from behind him, jabs a syringe into his neck. The others stare at him.

OWEN  
That was gonna get really old, really fast.

***

Ian had been in the Rift once before, but that time he hadn't been expecting it, had hardly been aware of where he was. It was easier, this time; he went in with a single memory held tightly in his mind, and the falling-floating sensation faded to blackness. It was like the caves in Missouri where he'd gone camping as a kid; pitch-black and oppressive. 

The guns helped too; they were cool and real in his hands. This was a new kind of hunting, but not so different from Weevils, really. Look for the shadow (in your mind, in time, the shadow in time) and follow it. Listen for the low growl (rumble in your bones, a chill up your ribcage) and triangulate the origin. Find places (times) to hide and watch. 

Jack had taught him well.

_Jack's never going to forgive me,_ he thought, as light and mass and time all scrolled past him, devoid (for now) of the Professor. _But on the bright side, I'll probably die in here, so it's not like I'll notice._

He had two green-metal guns, though. He had Yana's pocketwatch from their world in his waistcoat, stolen from their world's Yana's grave by Jack earlier that morning. He had his wits. He wasn't sure if any of them would do any good; he had no idea what firing a timelocked gun or opening Yana's pocketwatch would do inside the Rift. But he knew he could track the Professor. 

There. A flicker of noise in an Italian court in the 16th century. Just a hint, but enough to pull him up short. 

Inside the Rift, without a body, Ian began the chase. 

This was the easy part.

***

"Rift is destabilising," Gwen called, working frantically in tandem with Tommy at the computers. Tosh was tapping out commands on her handheld almost too fast to see. 

"It's no good -- we have to get to the epicenter," she said. "We can't hold the Rift open from outside."

"Tosh, don't you dare," Tommy shouted. 

"If it closes now we'll lose Ian and there's no guarantee he'll be able to stop him," she shouted back, vaulting over the rail and running towards the bright glowing gap in reality in the center of the Hub. "I have to go in. I can stabilise it from inside, leave the transmitter there, and come back."

"Toshiko -- "

"No, Tommy! There's no time!" 

"Gwen, grab him!" Owen yelled, as Tommy broke to follow. "She needs you out here, Tommy! Stay at your post, that's an order!"

Tosh pressed two buttons in quick succession on one of the transmitters, ejecting a small glass rod that glowed faintly. She turned, gave them a desperate, frantic look, and grabbed Owen's arm.

He didn't move as she leaned in and kissed him briefly, then hugged him with one arm around his neck and stepped back. 

"Yes," she said, and ran after Ian into the Rift. 

"Yes?" Gwen asked, turning to Owen. He was touching his lips, confused.

"Answer to an old question," he said. 

The destabilization alarms cut off abruptly. There was silence in the Hub, suddenly, except for the low, almost inaudible squeal of the Rift itself. Owen and Tommy stood staring; Gwen gave a sobbing noise as she inhaled. 

A clanking noise began, soft at first but growing louder; they began to look around them as it increased until it was almost unbearable. Gwen drew her gun as it passed directly overhead -- 

And then Tosh's face appeared over the rail, looking down on them.

"Hi," she said. "Have I been gone long?"

Owen gave a hysterical bark of laughter and ran up the steps, meeting her halfway. 

"I -- I went in and I left it and it was like -- this ball of -- and then it -- oh my god -- but I managed to -- it put me -- Hub, up there," she blurted, as he half-carried her down the steps to Tommy, who hugged her tightly. 

Gwen put a hand on her arm. "Did you see Ian?"

Tosh turned to look at the Rift.

"Yeah," she said. "He's in there. He's hunting."

***

There were no actual bodies in the Rift, and so he couldn't technically come face to face with the Professor; though he'd chased him in and out of time and his legs (that didn't exist) were sore and his heart (that didn't beat) was pumping furiously, when he finally caught up to the madman it was...oddly anticlimactic.

Here was a room of stone, with no doors, but somehow Ian was there; here was a table and here were two chairs, the Professor in one of them. Ian raised the gun.

"It won't hurt me," the Professor said, with a look of infinite tolerance. 

"It's timelocked. It'll fire in the Rift," Ian said.

"If you fully believed that you would have fired, young son. Have a seat," the Professor said, and kicked out the chair across the table from him. Ian pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

"Timelocked firearms are crude things," the Professor said. "Easily circumvented. This place..." he waved his hand, "Is a pocket of time inside the Rift, where time goes to die. Those guns don't work in real time. Only in the imaginary realms...your Jack must have paid a handsome price for them. Too bad."

"He's your Jack too," Ian said. 

"Yes, more mine than yours, in fact. He bores me now, though. He's a human; you're not very interesting, as creatures."

Ian sat down. He didn't know what else he could do. "And that's why you're bothering to enslave us, right?"

"I need a ship. I need weapons. This planet is a stepping-stone, at best. You're not a soldier, are you, son?"

"Don't call me that."

"I didn't think so. I was," the Professor said, leaning back comfortably. "I was the general of a great war."

"The Time War."

"Oh, you've heard of it? Did we win?"

Ian stared at him.

"I decided I didn't like our odds. I...left," the man smiled. "I don't even know if we won or not. I assume so, or else this world would have fallen to the Daleks long ago."

"That depends on how you define winning," Ian said. "Both races were destroyed."

"Except for me."

Ian smiled. "Believe that if you want. You won't leave the Rift alive anyway."

"Neither will you. Sooner or later this place drives the greatest men mad."

"Been there," Ian said. "And _I'm_ bored now. Can't you think of anything better to do?"

The Professor smiled. "Do you play cards, Mr. Leone? I'll play you for those guns of yours."

"How about something better?" Ian asked, lifting his right hand, the one still holding the green-metal gun. With his left hand he flicked the pocketwatch out of his waistcoat. 

He saw the Professor's eyes widen and his mouth open to shout a denial even as he moved; the pocketwatch clattered across the smooth table, the Professor dove for it, and Ian brought down the butt of the gun square on the crystal in one swift second. 

And then he knew nothing more. 

***

When the Rift went up, it went up in a big way; the edges started to turn a dangerous shade of red and somehow seemed to peel back away from reality for just a second before a concussion-wave burst out of it, blowing the stabilizers flat and knocking everyone off their feet. 

It killed Jack, which was in some ways fortunate; he would have been out for another hour if it hadn't. As it was he woke up to Gwen removing the handcuff from his wrist, rubbing the circulation back into it. He looked up at her, and for a moment he knew that she saw right through him to the terrified three-year-old he felt like.

"Where's the Rift?" he asked hoarsely.

"It closed," Gwen said. She rubbed his fingers with her hand. "I'm sorry, Jack."

"Oh. My. Sweet. JESUS," Owen swore, picking himself up and brushing dust out of his hair. 

"Rift spikes are resetting," Tosh called. She was bleeding from a cut over one eyebrow, and she kept brushing blood away as she worked, as if it were a minor annoyance. Owen found a wad of reasonably clean tissue in his pocket and pressed it over the wound, gazing at the monitors over her shoulder. "History's reknitting itself. Little echoes -- nothing significant."

"Uh, guys," Tommy said, standing under the clear, glass area of the ceiling where they could look up, even if no-one could look in. "You better see this."

Jack limped over tiredly and looked up. At first it was hard to make sense of the shapes; slowly, as he studied them, they coalesced into two bodies. One of them was wearing the Professor's tweed jacket; the other was in a white shirt, with a black waistcoat snug around his body. Neither were moving.

"Ian," he breathed, and bolted for the elevator to the Plaza.

***

Excerpt from the shooting script for Episode 2x20: Lords And Ladies  
Story & Teleplay: Ellis Graveworthy  
Directed by: Ellis Graveworthy

FINAL SCENE:

INT - HUB - AFTERNOON

JACK and GWEN are standing in front of the filing cabinets, GWEN placing a file inside. When she closes the drawer, JACK locks it and pockets the key. 

IAN V.O.  
We don't know much about the race of aliens that call themselves Time Lords. We know they're powerful; we know there was a war where they were destroyed completely. We thought only one of them remained -- the Doctor, who seemed to have taken it upon himself to be some kind of guardian for Earth.

INT - MEDICAL GROTTO

OWEN and TOMMY are hoisting the body of THE PROFESSOR onto a table, fitting him into a body bag. 

IAN V.O.  
Except the Doctor didn't come to help us this time. 

INT - SUV - IN TRAFFIC

TOSH is driving, JACK in the shotgun seat. OWEN, TOMMY, and GWEN are in the back. All of them look solemn.

IAN V.O.  
Another Time Lord, the Professor, tried to rewrite history in one sweeping arc, as if the complexities of life were so easily altered. We had to stop him; without the Doctor, without anything other than our wits. 

EXT - ILLINOIS FIELD

JACK watches as OWEN and GWEN spread some kind of flammable liquid around the base of a rough stick-and-log pyre with the body bag on top. TOSH holds a torch for TOMMY to light. She offers it to JACK, who takes it and begins lighting the base.

IAN V.O.  
And we did. We won. 

JACK and the TEAM, minus IAN, watch the PROFESSOR burn.

OWEN  
We could have learned a lot from him.

JACK  
[bitter]  
Nothing I wanted to know. 

TOMMY  
Why did we burn him? Why not keep him in cryo?

JACK  
Too dangerous. 

GWEN  
And Professor Yana deserved a funeral.

GWEN takes JACK's hand. 

JACK  
Yeah. That too. 

INT - IAN'S HOSPITAL ROOM 

IAN is sitting in bed, knees drawn up, journal propped on his thighs as he writes. 

IAN V.O.  
So now we know we don't need the Doctor. We're strong. We can defend ourselves. Jack's always told us that the twenty-first century is when everything changes. We're finally ready. 

IAN's door open and JACK enters, carrying two large paper bags. The rest of the TEAM enter behind him, and IAN closes his book, setting it aside and smiling at the others in greeting. JACK begins to unpack several cartons of Chinese food as the others settle in chairs around IAN's bed, talking and laughing. OWEN and TOSH are sitting very close together.

BLACKOUT. 

In green ink, in the margins: Very clever, Ellis. Ian "bookends" the season with his journal. You spent an entire year of writing for one cinematic pun.  
In red ink, below it: Genius has its quirks, love.

***

They'd been on location for about five hours, watching the Chicago sky turn from black to blue to yellow and filming the all-important Many Scenes Of Running that the actors always joked about. Running around the Hub, running across the Plaza, running down streets ravaged by this or that alien race. 

The actors and crew were taking ten for coffee and cigarettes, which to Ellis meant ten minutes where he didn't have to be thinking and talking. He enjoyed the cerebral side of directing and he'd been told that he was rather good at it, but he always found it exhausting. A writer could sit in on shooting and tune out for reasonable periods of time, working on their own projects; a director couldn't call his soul his own, especially in the chilly predawn streets of Wrigleyville. 

He was fortunate enough to open his eyes and sit up in time to see Edgar edging past the barriers, Edgar who should have been taking two well-deserved days off after filming in rural Illinois had played merry hell with his allergies. Ellis frowned, but he also waved, and Edgar caught sight of him and bolted over like his life depended on it, clearing a low pile of camera equipment easily. 

"Good morning," Ellis said calmly, as Edgar nearly fell over in an effort to stop in time. "Did someone put methamphetamines in your cornflakes?"

"You need to come with me," Edgar said, grabbing his sleeve and tugging.

"Come with -- we're in the middle of shooting, Edgar!" 

"Yeah, I know, but they can do without you for like an hour," Edgar said, still tugging. 

"They cannot, I'm the _director._ "

"Get your AD to do it, it'll be her big break, we can laugh about this when she gets her Oscar in twenty years."

"Not until you tell me what's going on."

Edgar stopped tugging, but the frenetic light in his eyes didn't dim.

"State Supreme Court just passed a ruling on the Gay Marriage Act," he said. "They're upholding same-sex marriage in Illinois. Come on, come _on_ , there's a cab waiting, we're going to the court house."

Ellis stared at him. 

"Ellis!"

"Edgar Nicholas van Scyoc, this is how you propose to me?" he demanded, pulling out of Edgar's grasp and crossing his arms. People all around them were starting to take an interest. "You're making a scene. Behave like an adult."

"I didn't know it was even on the books until today. Who has time to read the papers?" Edgar asked. "It was just on the news, I saw it, I came over, now come on!"

Ellis would, in fact, have gotten up and gone willingly except for the _assumption_ that he would and the fact that he hadn't yet had proper breakfast, which always made him contrary. Even then he might have stood up in another two seconds, except Edgar threw his hands up and rolled his eyes.

"You want a proposal?" he asked, which was when alarm bells began to ring. 

"Edgar, I didn't -- "

"Okay! Proposal!" Edgar said, extremely loudly. Ellis glanced around. The interested bystanders, including John, Gareth, and Hayden, had given up any pretense of not being an _audience._

Then Edgar dropped to his knees and spread his arms, and everything went all to hell.

"Ellis Graveworthy, considering that the state has been kind enough to allow us to wed, cohabitate, share a bank account and claim each other on our taxes, and considering that we have spent the last two years in each others' pockets and managed not to kill one another, and further considering that I feel a very strong need to stake my claim forever, will you please, _for god's sake,_ put your pen down and get out of your goddamn chair and come marry me?"

Ellis gazed down at him. He cut his eyes briefly to the crowd; John, curse the man, was looking on with unadulterated glee. Hayden had a camera out. John made a little shoo-ing motion.

"Well," he drawled, "when you put it so charmingly, Edgar, and so very very _publically_ \-- "

"You told me to!" Edgar protested, without moving.

"I did not, but that's beside the point. How can I possibly say no now?"

Then Edgar was on his feet; he pulled him bodily out of the chair and kissed him, and then John kissed them both (with tongue; well, it was John) and then Edgar kissed him again and Ellis couldn't help but notice that his assistant director did have a somewhat ambitious gleam in her eye.

"You lot," he said sternly. "I'll be back in an hour. Misbehave and you'll feel my wrath."

"Promise?" Edgar whispered in his ear, as he pulled him towards the cab.

***

_Ellis Graveworthy knows the power of happy endings and unhappy ones. Happy endings are rarely perfect; well, they are too perfect, and a storyteller never wants too much perfection. Still, there's no reason to kill your characters unless it's absolutely necessary._

_He made Edgar promise one thing when he agreed to come on-board Torchwood, charmed by Edgar's enthusiasm and intrigued by the characters and mythology of it all. He made him swear, and Edgar swore, that Ellis could write whatever ending to the series he chose, when the time came._

_"Out of curiosity," Edgar had said, back when they were still Mr. Graveworthy and Mr. van Scyoc to each other, "What exactly did you have in mind for an ending? Because we've, you know, we haven't actually written a beginning yet."_

_Ellis pulled a napkin towards him and uncapped his pen._

_"How far do you trust me?" he asked._

_"Trust you to what?"_

_"Trust me to make this ending true and still make it good?"_

_Edgar had frowned at him. "I wouldn't have chosen you if I didn't think you were the man for the job."_

_Ellis scribbled seven words on the napkin and passed it across to him. The thing itself is taped up over Edgar's desk, in a corner of the cabinetry where very few can see it._

_Edgar grinned._

_"Make this true and good," he said, "and you can write for me forever."_

_"I'll hold you to that," Ellis said._

AND THEY ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER.


End file.
